Google: Group that ran text message phishing scams has been shut down

Google says a group behind text message phishing scams that alleged extra toll fees and delayed packages to get people’s personal information has been shut down.

The culprit was Lighthouse, which offered “phishing-as-a-service,” allowing criminals to pose as the E-ZPass road toll company, the U.S. Postal Service and other organizations to get recipients of the text messages to disclose their personal or financial information, Google said.

Google itself was also impersonated, which led the company to file a lawsuit against the people behind Lighthouse on Wednesday.

“This shutdown of Lighthouse’s operations is a win for everyone. We will continue to hold malicious scammers accountable and protect consumers,” Google general counsel Halimah DeLaine Prado told CNBC.

Google said it found at least 107 website templates using Google branding in an attempt to make the phishing landing pages where criminals solicited the information from their victims look more legitimate.

Lighthouse, Google said, harmed more than 1 million people across over 120 countries, stealing between 12.7 million and 115 million credit card numbers in the U.S. alone.

Google said Wednesday that Lighthouse was a foreign operation but did not specify its country of origin. Legal documents said the group was based in China, according to technology website Ars Technica.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com .