Microsoft restricts Teams personal version in China amid fraud surge

Microsoft has taken steps to restrict the personal version of Microsoft Teams in China following a surge in digital fraud using the communication platform. Criminals have been utilizing the tool to conduct social engineering scams, leading to reported losses of approximately 1.5 million yuan.

The fraudulent method involves criminals inviting victims to a Teams account under the scammers' control. Once the victim is engaged, the criminals extract money and subsequently revoke the victim's access to the chat history, making it difficult for authorities to gather evidence. Due to the severity of these incidents, Microsoft suspended access to the personal version of the app on mobile devices in July and expanded the restriction to the desktop version in August. Currently, only the corporate version of the application remains available in the region.