Microsoft and Japan's Police Begin Takedown of Scam Marketplace Services
The takedown names and goes after the supply side of scam messaging, the accounts, hosting, and fake-site tools criminals rent rather than the messages themselves, which is what makes repeated blocking ineffective.
Reporting from 1 source: GIGAZINE.
Steven Masada of Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit said the company, working with Japan's National Police Agency, has begun dismantling an online marketplace that supports scam messages aimed at people and businesses in Japan. The services named are YAM Store, CoGUI, and Iron Man; since January 2026 more than 1 billion malicious messages were sent through them, more than 750 million to Microsoft customers, targeting over 75,000 organizations.
The named services are YAM Store, CoGUI, and Iron Man, and Microsoft says it has begun dismantling all three. The trail ran through a Chinese-language cybercrime ecosystem where accounts, hosting, and tools for building fake websites and fake online identities were bought and sold. Investigators, working with the National Police Agency and partner organizations, traced attack routes and reached the operators supplying services to criminals. Messages went out to consumers, medical institutions, financial institutions, and other companies across more than 150 countries, and operators earned profits on the scale of tens of millions of dollars.
- YAM Store: online marketplace service involved in cybercrime
- CoGUI: investigators gained access and found it provides criminals with ready-made websites and messages
- Iron Man: online marketplace service involved in cybercrime
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.