Operation Ghost Hook seized the infrastructure behind a subscription kit that the FBI ties to 3.87 million stolen cards.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works .
The kit captured victim data in real time and could request SMS codes, PINs, email codes, and app approvals on demand, allowing operators to retrieve one-time passcodes for two-factor authentication. Fake E-ZPass and other toll texts have driven a wave of fraud over the past two years.
Google's filing alleges Outsider distributed step-by-step instructions, including a tutorial video, showing customers how to make Gemini write the HTML for a phishing page. The prompts were dressed up as requests for an innocuous "gift redemption page" built with inline CSS and no JavaScript, wording that was meant to read as ordinary coding help and avoid the model’s safety filters.
The resulting shell was imported back into the Outsider software and became a working scam site, multiplying the variations available from the 290 templates. Google has previously reported nation-state hackers using Gemini across phishing and intrusion campaigns, and researchers last year demonstrated a Gemini for Workspace flaw that obeyed instructions hidden inside emails. “Criminals increasingly use AI to make fraud like this more convincing and harder to detect,” said Brett Leatherman, assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division.
$21 billion stolen from more than 1 million Americans due to cybercrime in 2025
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cyber-security/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cyber-security/fbi-and-google-dismantle-chinese-phishing-service-that-coached-buyers-to-generate-scam-sites-with-gemini#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/membership
- Google Chromebook marks its 15th anniversary — slow feature rollouts and a canceled Steam beta leave it largely stuck in classrooms
- Snapmaker launches $150,000 Innovation Fund for open source 3D printing — cash rewards target developers backing the U1 toolchanger across Klipper, OrcaSlicer,
- Microsoft is reportedly testing Copilot+ AI features with discrete GPUs instead of NPUs — a feature available on Windows App SDK with a Windows Insider Experime
- More than 75 data center build-outs worth $130 billion have been successfully blocked in the first three months of 2026 — bipartisan opposition mounts nationwid
- Researchers recycle old phones and cluster them into ‘computing platforms’ that operate as a low-cost data center — says processors on modern smartphones delive
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.