Israeli ad company helped a spyware firm target Al Jazeera through online ads, researchers say
Citizen Lab says the campaign reached more than 120,000 websites and 70,000 apps and infected at least 45 Al Jazeera devices.
- On Thursday, Canadian cyber watchdog group Citizen Lab and New York advertising security firm Confiant reported that Israeli digital advertising agency Discover-Tech spied on internet users through online ads to facilitate hacking and deliver spyware to their devices.
- Discover-Tech secretly operated a program called Controlium that allowed mercenary spyware companies like Candiru to inject malicious code onto visitors' devices; the firm's ads covertly directed millions of devices to contact Candiru's servers.
- Researchers found Discover-Tech pumped out at least 10 million ads daily, reaching over 120,000 websites and 70,000 apps between March and June. No-click spyware compromised 45 Windows devices at Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera in 2024 and 2025.
- Google and IAB Europe suspended Discover-Tech last week for violating policies, while Comcast ad tech subsidiary Beeswax removed the firm 'following recent activity.' Five ad vendors and industry organizations disconnected the platform from their services.
- Calling the current advertising ecosystem 'a systemic security threat,' Citizen Lab senior researcher Wolfie Cristl urged regulators to investigate involved companies and fix systemic risks that enable malicious ad targeting.
123 Articles
123 Articles
'Recipe for disaster': Israeli firm used ads to enable espionage, report says
An Israeli advertising agency has placed ads seen by millions of internet users that have left them open to spyware attacks, according to a new report from the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab.
No-click spyware enabler 'served ads on Australian media networks'
Australian citizens and infrastructure were part of a massive and unprecedented “zero-click” spyware network, according to Canadian researchers who brought the global attacks to light. Israeli ad-tech company Discover-Tech allegedly used online ads to track internet users and help infect selected devices with spyware, according to investigations by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab and […]
Two reports published on Thursday lift the veil on Discover-Tech, an Israeli company specializing in online advertising that sells its services to the surveillance sector.
Ekstra Bladet
Cybersecurity group accuses Discover-Tech of hacking targeted individuals via ads
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