Microsoft Stops 1 Billion Scam Texts in Global Takedown

Your inbox might finally get a little quieter, thanks to a major win against cybercriminals flooding the world with scam messages.

Microsoft partnered with Japan's National Police Agency to take down YAM Store, a sprawling marketplace where scammers bought stolen accounts and tools to send phishing texts. Since January 2026, this network sent more than a billion malicious messages targeting 75,000 organizations across 150 countries.

The scammers weren't just annoying people about fake parking tickets. They impersonated banks, police departments, healthcare providers, and major companies to steal money and personal information from victims worldwide.

YAM Store operated like a criminal shopping mall. Scammers could purchase hijacked Microsoft and Google accounts, pick from over 2,300 fake message templates, and even buy expired web domains to make their scams look legitimate.

The platform also created websites for completely fake organizations just to generate Microsoft accounts they could resell. It was a full-service operation designed to make scamming as easy as possible.

Microsoft fought back by disabling over 20,000 fraudulent accounts connected to the marketplace. The company also blocked more than 100,000 web domains being used for impersonation and fraud.

Working with Health-ISAC, a healthcare cybersecurity nonprofit, Microsoft seized and shut down the web infrastructure powering all three criminal platforms: YAM Store, CoGUI, and Iron Man.

The Ripple Effect

This takedown reaches far beyond blocking annoying texts. Healthcare organizations, financial institutions, and small businesses were all being targeted by these sophisticated scams, putting patient data and customer information at risk.

The investigation shows what's possible when tech companies and law enforcement work across borders. By following the digital trail from billions of scam messages back to their source, they dismantled the entire operation instead of just blocking individual messages.

Microsoft customers alone were targeted by 750 million of these phishing attempts. The criminals behind these platforms made tens of millions of dollars before getting caught.

Now that the marketplace is gone, scammers have lost a major tool for launching attacks at scale. That means real protection for people checking their phones, seniors targeted by financial scams, and businesses trying to keep their data safe.

Your next "package delivery" text might still be fake, but there will be far fewer of them reaching your phone.