Summary of GASS Summit - March 2025

Microsoft, Meta and others join the Global Signal Exchange (GSE)

The Global Signal Exchange (GSE) took centre stage at this quarter’s Global Anti-Scam Summit (GASS) in London, held at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre from 26–27 March 2025. The summit brought together government ministers, law enforcement leaders, cybersecurity experts, and major tech firms to address the urgent and growing threat of online scams and fraud.

Throughout the event, the GSE was positioned as a transformative tool in the global fight against fraud. It was praised in every main session and highlighted as a platform that could truly shift the tide in favour of prevention.

Tech giants Microsoft, Meta and Netcraft used the event to announce their participation in the GSE, joining founding partner Google and underlining the platform’s increasing influence. Together with the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA) and the DNS Research Federation (DNSRF), they are helping to build a collaborative response to one of the world’s most pressing digital threats.

Meta described the GSE as the first global, multi-sector signal sharing clearinghouse, designed to unify efforts between technology companies, financial institutions, regulators, and consumer protection bodies. Google shared its recent secure exchange via the platform, while Netcraft provided a more vivid analogy and likened the GSE to a “multiplayer whack-a-mole,” capturing the agility and coordination needed to combat scams in real time.

Each year, around 1 trillion dollars are lost to scams and fraud.^[1] In the UK, 41% of reported crime is related to fraud,^[2] and yet only 2.5% of these lead to prosecution.^[3] However, scams are not a domestic issue, they are carried out on a global level. In developing nations, scams have a more significant impact on GDP^[4], such as Pakistan, with a GDP impact of 4.2%, or Kenya and South Africa with impacts of 3.6% and 3.4% respectively^[5].

The urgency of this issue was echoed by UK Government Ministers, including Lord Hanson, the newly appointed Fraud Minister, and Baroness Jones, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Future Digital Economy and Online Safety. Both referenced the GSE in outlining the national strategy to counter scams and fraud. Lord Hanson described the GSE as a foundation for understanding the evolving nature and scale of the threat.

This national commitment builds on a 2024 pledge from the UK Prime Minister to confront fraud with stronger international cooperation and leadership. Lord Hanson opened the summit with a clear message: “Fraudsters operate across national, sector, and technological borders. To stop them, we must do the same.”

The GSE, launched in 2024, enables verified members to securely exchange scam-related signals in real time, providing actionable insight into where and how abuse is occurring. The system also use leaderboards to drive participation and enhance transparency across sectors.

During the event, the GSE’s relevance was reinforced by endorsements from key figures such as Fran Dowling, Director General of the National Crime Agency, and the Head of the Fraud Policy Unit at the Home Office. High-profile tech advocate and YouTuber, KitBoga also highlighted the GSE during his closing keynote. His company, Seraph Secure, is partnering with the platform to contribute large volumes of malware data for analysis.

Alongside the summit, the DNSRF led a Fraud and Scams Symposium, and Google hosted a dedicated workshop on Sharing Cross-Sector Data Worldwide. Both sessions generated strong interest in the GSE and its potential to redefine fraud prevention.

During the workshop, Lucien Taylor, CTO of DNSRF, provided an update on the GSE’s progress and outlined its future development. Emily Taylor focused on the platform’s privacy-first design and robust compliance safeguards, emphasising that trust and accountability are integral to breaking down the “culture of no” that often hinders data sharing.

The summit left no doubt: tackling scams at scale demands more than good intentions. It requires platforms like the GSE—secure, collaborative, and global in scope—to lead the way in turning shared intelligence into shared protection.