Google Says Chinese ‘Lighthouse’ Phishing Kit Disrupted Following Lawsuit

Google says the Lighthouse phishing service has been disrupted after the company filed a lawsuit against the cybercrime group operating it, with Google stating Lighthouse operations have been shut down since the filing was announced. The threat actor, tracked as Smishing Triad and believed to be based in China, has targeted more than one million users across over 120 countries, using a Lighthouse kit that Google says distributes links to phishing sites designed to harvest credentials and other data.

Google identified more than 100 phishing site templates impersonating its brand and services. According to Palo Alto Networks, a recent Smishing Triad campaign involved more than 194,000 malicious domains. The security week piece notes that the group’s operations claimed to have hosted most of their phishing sites on Tencent and Alibaba infrastructure, and that the size of the impact remains to be seen as Google pursues the legal action.