TL;DRGoogle is suing Outsider Enterprise, a Chinese cybercrime ring that used Gemini AI to build phishing sites and sent 2.5M scam texts in two weeks. FBI is involved.
Google filed a lawsuit on Friday to dismantle the infrastructure behind a Chinese cybercrime operation called Outsider Enterprise. The group used AI, including Google’s own Gemini, to generate phishing websites and send scam text messages impersonating Google and other brands. It sent 2.5 million fraudulent texts to Android users in a two-week period.
The operation deployed 9,000 fake websites and 1 million fraudulent web domains designed to steal passwords and credit card numbers. Google said the group has financially scammed “hundreds of thousands of victims” with losses “estimated in the millions.” In just two weeks in May, 55,000 spam texts were flagged by Android users, more than two complaints per minute.
The most damaging detail is in the court filing. Members of Outsider Enterprise actively encouraged each other to use Gemini to generate custom code for phishing websites, which was then imported into the group’s software suite and converted into live scam pages. Google’s own AI was used to build the tools targeting Google’s own users.
