Israeli firm Discover-Tech used online ads to spy on users worldwide

Discovery of zero-click attack method

Citizen Lab and Confiant found that ads only needed to load on a website for spying to occur. This technique allowed malicious code to infect targets without any action from the victim.

Scale of the surveillance network

The agency's advertisements reached more than 120,000 websites and 75,000 apps through various partnerships. Researchers noted that users could be identified and tracked simply by visiting sites containing these malicious ads.

Targeting of specific organizations

The investigation revealed that dozens of devices at the Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera were compromised by this spyware. Reports indicate that Discover-Tech worked with Candiru to deliver infections to devices in dozens of countries.