by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
SDNY COURTHOUSE, Nov 25 – Scammers using the phishing software kit "Lighthouse" have been sued, as Does 1-12, by Google. The case is before U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who will hold a November 25 hearing. Inner City Press intends to live-tweet it, on Bluesky if still blocked from its X account (after phishing on which X has yet to act).
Google's complaint begins, "The scam begins with a text message. It may alert you to a problem with the delivery of a package and invite you to click a link to correct your address."
[In the case with X, InnerCityPress received an email saying it was accused by X of a copyright violation, to appeal which it had to enter its password. X was immediately informed on November 17 but more than five days later, X has yet to return the account.]
The complaint continues that "disrupting the Lighthouse Enterprise will require persistence because the Enterprise can execute new phishing schemes with little effort, thanks to the Lighthouse software and coordination on the Lighthouse discussion forums."
The case is filed under RICO, the CFAA and the Lanham Act. Google is represented by King & Spalding LLP. The Does not surprisingly have not yet made an appearance.
On November 25 Inner City Press live tweeted the PI hearing, held by Judge Marrero as Part I:
Judge Marrero: Has Google communicated with any of the defendants? Google's lawyer: Apart from the service, no. We got 340 email addresses from registrars we served the TRO on. They took down some servers. We also put it on our public website we put up on Nov 15
Google: The Court already gave us a TRO - we will suffer immediate and irreparable harm. The scope of the Lighthouse conspiracy is vast - 121 countries, fake websites - victims have their money stolen, using Google's logos - YouTube too. We have tried to disrupt
Google's lawyer: They work together, doing different parts of the phishing schemes. Is there no countervailing interest in continuing the phishing scheme. We have taken down 2 servers and 2100 domains out of some 2500... The PI order is needed
Judge: I grant the preliminary injunction. Adjourned.
The case is Google LLC v. Does 1-25, 1:25-cv-9421 (Kaplan)
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