Six in 10 people in Scotland hit by suspected scam emails or texts

The new research findings are from The Global Signal Exchange (GSE), the world’s first global, multi-stakeholder and cross-sector clearing house for threat signals.

The Global Signal Exchange also announces that Microsoft and Meta are joining as partners and data providers. Microsoft and Meta join more than 30 global leaders collaborating through GSE to tackle online scams, fraud and abuse with unprecedented pace, software capabilities and scale.

The Global Signal Exchange (GSE) was founded in 2024 by Oxford Information Labs Research (OXIL), Google and the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA). The GSE enables partner organisations to collaborate, share data and harness the imperatives of speed and scale to stop online scams, fraud and abuse faster - making them less effective and less profitable. As of July 2025, the GSE contains over 320M signals from 32 data providers incl. Google, Spamhaus and Abusix.

Microsoft and Meta are the latest of a number of global brands to join the Global Signal Exchange – and this comes at a time when online scams are having a devastating impact on people’s lives, and are causing real-world harm to users: According to GASA’s 2024 Global State of Scams Report, the current annual cost of scams exceeds $1.03 trillion USD globally, and rising. This cost is equivalent to the UK’s annual government spending and is three times more than the estimated cost of ending world hunger by 2030. Further, according to the World Economic Forum, worldwide only 0.05% of all cybercrimes are prosecuted.

Chris Compton, Director - Outreach & Governance, Central Fraud & Abuse Risk, Microsoft - "Microsoft is proud to join the Global Signal Exchange, a network we see as pivotal in the global effort to combat online scams and abuse. We believe that collaboration across sectors and borders is critical to disrupting malicious activity. GSE will enhance our ability to work together with our fellow members to stop bad actors worldwide. Joining the Exchange marks an important step in Microsoft's continued commitment to the safety of users everywhere."

Nathaniel Gleicher, Global Head of Counter Fraud, Meta - “Online scams are driven by ruthless cross-border criminal networks that use sophisticated schemes to abuse a wide range of platforms and target people across society. We need platforms, banks, governments, law enforcement, domain name systems and telecoms to work together to stop these actors, and we’re committed to doing our part. This is why we are building on our long standing work with the Global Signal Exchange to share intelligence and help protect people from these criminals. We’re also investing in technology to aggressively enforce against scams - including testing the use of facial recognition technology, while also empowering people to protect themselves with on-platform warnings and tools educating consumers on common schemes.”

Emily Taylor, co-founder of the Global Signal Exchange comments: “We warmly welcome Microsoft and Meta to the Global Signal Exchange and we are excited by the significant contribution they will make in helping us all to change the narrative on crime, fraud and abuse. The level of global support for the Global Signal Exchange signifies a step-change in the fight against online crime, as we facilitate a new culture of co-operation and data sharing. Scammers work together, they share and they move quickly, which means the days are long-gone when individual brands can tackle online crime alone. The Global Signal Exchange marks a new chapter in the collective fight-back against online crime.”

Andre Naumann, GSE Project Lead at Google adds: “At Google, we're committed to working collaboratively to create a safer web for our users. Through the Global Signal Exchange, we've been sharing actionable threat signals with a wide variety of actors to quickly identify and disrupt scams, and we're delighted to see more organisations joining the effort.”

GSE is open to anyone with a legitimate interest in, or ability to act against, online scams. Accredited partners will not only gain access to the latest fraud intelligence but also receive a customised dashboard that spotlights data most relevant to their organisation. Those with access to their own abuse feed will be encouraged to contribute to the collective effort by sharing it with the exchange. The system will also incorporate a feedback loop that rewards swift reporting, threat mitigation, and quality control.