Microsoft and Japanese police take down marketplace behind more than a billion scam messages
Microsoft says it disabled more than 20,000 accounts tied to YAM Store and two phishing kits.
Microsoft said on Wednesday it helped dismantle a marketplace for scammers sending phishing messages, following an investigation with Japan's National Police Agency, The Verge reported.
The company traced activity to a marketplace called YAM Store and two phishing kits, CoGUI and Iron Man, and disabled more than 20,000 associated accounts.
Since January 2026, the operations enabled more than one billion malicious messages targeting over 75,000 organizations in more than 150 countries, including more than 750 million aimed at Microsoft customers, generating tens of millions of dollars for their operators, Microsoft said.
Scammers could buy stolen or fraudulent Microsoft and Google accounts on YAM Store and use the kits to send messages such as fake parking-ticket and package-delivery texts, according to the report.
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