German Federal Police Launch New Phishing Unit Amid International Cybercrime Crackdowns

German authorities announced the creation of a national anti‑phishing cell within the Federal Criminal Police, aiming to improve coordination, victim support and cross‑border cooperation against fraudulent email and phone schemes. The unit will compile threat intelligence, develop offender profiles and work with Europol and neighbouring countries.

Separately, the German Federal Criminal Police (BKA) and Europol dismantled a major infrastructure used by the StealC, SocGholish and Amadey infostealer families. The operation, part of the ongoing “Operation Endgame,” disabled about 15,000 websites, 320 servers and 140 domains, and recovered credentials from roughly 385,000 victims.

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation warned of a phishing‑as‑a‑service platform called Kali365, which hijacks Microsoft‑365 OAuth tokens without requiring passwords, exposing Outlook, Teams and OneDrive accounts. Microsoft has issued new security guidance to mitigate such attacks.

Reports from the United States, Germany, India and other regions show a sharp rise in fraud targeting older adults, with remote‑access tools and phishing messages leading to a 37 % increase in losses for U.S. seniors and comparable spikes in India. Similar telephone scams have been reported by the German Pension Insurance, where fraudsters impersonate officials to extract payments from retirees.