Over a Billion Scam Messages: Microsoft and Japan Dismantle YAM Store

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents Over a Billion Scam Messages: Microsoft and Japan Dismantle YAM Store.

Over a billion scam messages: Microsoft and Japan dismantle YAM Store.

You probably know the feeling: a text about an alleged parking ticket, a package notification from a sender you never ordered anything from. Exactly these kinds of messages have flooded phones and inboxes in massive numbers in recent years — and that's precisely where a new takedown hits.

Microsoft, together with Japan's National Police Agency, has busted an online marketplace for cybercriminals that was used to send phishing messages on a large scale. The joint investigation led to a black market called YAM Store and two phishing kits named CoGUI and Iron Man.

Over a Billion Messages Since January 2026

Microsoft puts the reach of the three tools at massive scale: since January 2026, YAM Store, CoGUI, and Iron Man together have enabled more than a billion malicious messages. Microsoft singles out over 750 million messages specifically. More than 75,000 organizations worldwide were affected — their names and logos were abused in the campaigns to get recipients to click.

How to Spot the Scam

According to Microsoft, the messages from the YAM Store ecosystem followed two especially common patterns: fake texts about alleged parking tickets that supposedly needed to be paid, and counterfeit package notifications designed to lure recipients onto a fake delivery page. Exactly these waves could now become less frequent.

What Does This Actually Change for You?

Microsoft itself puts it cautiously optimistic: users will hopefully see fewer of these scam texts soon. How quickly that effect sets in depends on how thoroughly the people behind it have been cut off from the network.