Spyware Firm Turned Everyday Ads Into Hacking Tools, Reports Say
An Israeli advertising agency used its massive ad network to spy on users and pass their information off to a spyware company blacklisted in the United States, according to reports.
An Israeli advertising agency used its massive ad network to spy on users and pass their information off to a spyware company blacklisted in the United States, according to reports.
Digital advertising agency, Discover-Tech, granted Israeli surveillance groups, including blacklisted firm Candiru access to advertising platforms on Google, Comcast, Russia’s Yandex, and other search engines, according to reports released Thursday by New York advertising security firm Confiant and Canada-based cyber watchdog group, Citizen Lab. Discover-Tech’s ads were used to track targets and even help hack into their devices, the reports indicate.
In 2021, Candiru was blacklisted in America by the Department of Commerce because it “supplied spyware to foreign governments that used these tools to maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics, and embassy workers.”
Discover-Tech utilized a platform called Controlium that enables its partner spyware firms to de-anonymize, fingerprint and automatically infect a device as an advertisement renders on the page — meaning a user does not even have to click the ad to be hacked,