Time to declare independence from phishing scams — here's how

AI is meant to be the saving grace of the modern age. Proponents say it will unlock new innovations in economic growth, health care, and other industries. On the flip side, it’s also a tool for bad actors to commit digital crimes faster and more efficiently than ever before.

It's a tension that is now reaching the law, from the courts to Congress. And not a moment too soon.

So far, hundreds of thousands of victims have been affected.

Last month, for instance, Google filed a lawsuit against Chinese scammers accused of targeting “hundreds of thousands of Americans” with financial schemes, all distributed broadly with some help from AI.

As the group's malicious activities are exposed, you can take some simple actions to start fighting back — while Congress gets moving to ensure we can sweep back the tide of automated scams at scale.

Here's the scoop.

The lawsuit

According to the civil lawsuit divulged on the Keyword blog by Google, the Mountain View tech giant is going after a cybercriminal group based in China called “Outsider Enterprise.” The entity uses Telegram, a third-party communications app with optional end-to-end encryption that subverts authorities, to share “phishing kits” that recreate official-looking text messages from major companies, all aimed at unsuspecting users. The goal is to trick users into clicking on a link in the messages, which then takes them to a fake copy of popular websites — including Google, YouTube, and government services — before stealing their personal information.

These types of scams are nothing new. Phishing dates back to the 1990s with the advent of AOL. What is new, however, is the breadth and scale of scams that criminals can achieve with AI platforms, like Google Gemini, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Claude by Anthropic.

Google claims that "Outsider Enterprise" runs a massive AI-fueled cybercriminal network built around 9,000 fake websites, all siphoning data gleaned from 2.5 million messages sent directly to users in two weeks during May alone.

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So far, “hundreds of thousands of victims” have been affected, with more than $1 million in estimated losses.

Google lobbies for legislation

To help curb the onslaught of the AI-enabled scams that are likely to emerge in the coming years, Google demands immediate government regulation, with seven bills called out by name on its blog. Note that most of these bills are bipartisan in nature.

• National Strategy for Combating Scams Act: This bipartisan bill, proposed by Republican Rep. Derek Schmidt (Kan.), is designed to crack down on financial fraud and improve anti-scam efforts on the state and local levels.
• Strategic Task Force on Scam Prevention Act: Led by Reps. Erin Houchin (R-Ind.) and Rob Menendez (D-N.J.), this bill empowers the DOJ and FTC to create a comprehensive national scam prevention strategy task force to support scam victims.
• STOP Scams Against Seniors Act: Proposed by Rep. Gabe Amo (D-R.I.), STOP holds criminal organizations accountable for targeting older victims.
• AI Plan Act: Reps. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa) and Jim Himes (D-Conn.). The bill enables the executive branch to devise a plan to protect the U.S.’ financial system and sensitive data from misuse by AI companies and platforms.
• Stopping Cross-border Attacks and Manipulation Act: This bill by Reps. Jim Baird (R-Ind.) and Eugene Vindman (D-Va.) aims directly at international cybercriminals and foreign scam networks that target American citizens.
• Artificial Intelligence Public Awareness and Education Campaign Act: Sens. Todd Young (R-Ind.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) proposed a bill that compels the secretary of commerce to educate the public and provide information on the benefits, risks, and prevalence of AI as it applies to the daily lives of everyday Americans.
• Stop Schemes, Cyber Fraud, Abuse, Manipulation, and Swindles Act: Proposed by Rep. Josh Harder (D-Calif.), this bill gives the FBI the power to set up an anti-scam task force guided by a standardized system for tracking and investigating criminal groups.

Usually, companies prefer less government regulation over the products they create, so it’s strange to watch Google lobby so adamantly for AI laws that could potentially limit Gemini and its competitors. Still, given the broad impacts of AI on modern life — both good and bad — it’s clear that some regulation is necessary.

How to protect yourself

Most of these bills have a long way to go before they become law. In the meantime, there are some things you can do to protect yourself from Outsider Enterprise and other AI phishing scams:

• Approach all texts from unknown senders with suspicion. Major groups, including Google and the government, rarely send official communications via SMS, RCS, or iMessage. Texts claiming otherwise should not be trusted.
• Flag all potential scam texts as spam within your messaging app. This helps message platform holders tune their algorithms to identify scam texts, alert authorities, and block them from reaching your phone in the first place.
• Turn on the spam text blocker in your built-in messaging app on iPhone and Android.

Phishing is just one way that AI poses a danger to users. Sophisticated AI platforms, like Claude Mythos by Anthropic, can supposedly hack into some of the most secure systems that protect banks, online accounts, and even government infrastructure. Concerns over AI’s growing capabilities have even caused the Trump administration to enact stronger regulations that give the government early access to frontier models before they are made available to the public. Whether or not this new procedure offers any meaningful protection from AI remains to be seen.