Microsoft announced that a phishing network backed by USDT has been used to target roughly 75,000 organizations worldwide. The operation leveraged the stablecoin to receive payments from victims before moving funds through a series of crypto wallets.
Law‑enforcement actions led to the seizure of domains associated with the YAM Store and the shutdown of phishing‑kit services that supported the campaign. These takedowns disrupted the infrastructure used to distribute malicious links and harvest credentials.
The total value of USDT assets frozen in the operation was not disclosed, and Microsoft did not provide details on the number of wallets or the amount of cryptocurrency moved before the intervention.
USDT traded at $0.999299 on the day of the report, showing no price movement over the prior 24 hours. The lack of price impact suggests that market participants have not yet priced in the security breach, but the incident raises concerns about the use of stablecoins for illicit financing.
The episode underscores the growing intersection between traditional cyber‑crime and crypto‑based payment channels. Regulators and security firms may intensify monitoring of stablecoin transactions to detect similar abuse, potentially prompting tighter compliance requirements for wallet providers.
This story was compiled by the Tradexus News Desk with the help of AI.
