Online ads weaponised to deliver ‘zero-click’ spyware, researchers say: [Israel-based] Discover-Tech’s Controlium software lets clients mass-profile internet users then covertly hack targets, say researchers at University of Toronto

Millions of users worldwide have been served ads by Discover-Tech since 2024, say researchers. Photograph: Sergio Azenha/Alamy

Hacking

Aisha Down

Thu 15 Oct 202

An Israeli advertising agency has been serving millions of online adverts that allow “zero-click” spyware to be used against targets, researchers at a Canadian university have said.

Citizen Lab, a digital investigations research unit at the University of Toronto, said it believed dozens of devices at the Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera had been compromised by spyware delivered through ads run by Discover-Tech, which describes itself as a specialised digital advertising agency.

According to Citizen Lab, Discover-Tech operates a software platform called Controlium that allows its clients to “mass-profile and deanonymise” internet users then covertly hack targets with third-party spyware. Unlike infections that rely on people interacting with links or files, the spyware requires no interaction from the victim to be installed, making it a new delivery technique, Citizen Lab says.

The infections happen without a user’s knowledge, and in a matter of seconds, according to Citizen Lab.

“[The online advertising] ecosystem is being weaponised at a massive scale to profile millions of users, then silently infect targets with zero-click mercenary spyware,” the report says.

According to the report, Controlium is able to harvest a user’s identity and IP address when the user is shown a seemingly benign custom-created ad – for example, for a digital game or a telecoms service. If the user has been selected as a target for hacking, a mercenary spyware firm can then send a malicious code containing spyware to their device, the researchers say.

They say that millions of users worldwide have been served ads by Discover-Tech since 2024, including in Yemen, Brazil, Mexico and Czechia.

Related work by the research group Confiant also suggests that Discover-Tech’s ads have been shown to users of the networks of government entities in Europe and the US, as well as the UN, Nato, the international criminal court and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

“It’s disastrous that major ad vendors and organisations apparently were neither able to detect nor prevent the company’s malicious advertising operations for years,” said Wolfie Christl, a researcher at Citizen Lab. “The way the online advertising ecosystem works today is a security threat for states, the private sector, civil society and everyone else alike.”

According to Citizen Lab, Controlium acts as a “facilitator” for third-party spyware firms that have targeted “government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics and embassy workers”. Citizen Lab claims it can deliver spyware that can access everything on the device of a target, extracting messages, photos and emails, recording calls and secretly activating microphones.

The full extent of the targeting allegedly enabled by Discover-Tech is unknown. Citizen Lab’s findings join mounting evidence that the opaque arrangements underpinning the world of online advertising can be leveraged for surveillance.

“There has been a lot of buzz that... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/oct/15/israeli-firm-digital-ads-enabling-installation-of-zero-click-spyware-researchers-say

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Israel-based "AdFection"... Spyware vendors found a way to make targeted ads even worse- Israeli adtech outfit allegedly helped spyware vendors infect phones while enjoying Google's seal of approval

  Carly Page

The online advertising industry has found a new way to make itself even more unpopular, with one adtech outfit accused of helping spyware vendors infect people's phones without them even clicking an ad.

Researchers at Citizen Lab say they've uncovered the first publicly confirmed case of a zero-click mercenary spyware attack being delivered through targeted online ads, with devices at Al Jazeera among those infected.

The technique, dubbed "AdFection," turns advertising networks into a spyware delivery system. Simply opening a website or app can be enough to trigger the attack, with no suspicious links or downloads involved.

Israeli adtech firm Discover-Tech is allegedly behind the operation, according to researchers at Citizen Lab, which says the company acts as a middleman between the online advertising industry and multiple spyware and hacking vendors.

"We present technical evidence that the Israel-based company Discover-Tech, while purporting to be a legitimate advertising company, appears to be a front for large-scale ad espionage abuse," the researchers wrote. “In fact, it appears that serving as this bridge is Discover-Tech’s primary purpose."

Discover-Tech’s Controlium platform exploits the real-time bidding system that decides which ads appear on websites and apps. Every time someone loads a page, advertisers compete for available ad space and, in the process, receive information about the user's device and location. Discover-Tech allegedly used that data to identify specific targets and serve them malicious ads. 

One spyware vendor linked to the operation is Candiru, the Israeli developer now known as Integrity Labs. Citizen Lab traced attacks against at least 45 devices at Al Jazeera in 2024 and 2025 to Candiru spyware delivered through ads from Discover-Tech.

Discover-Tech didn't have to sneak into the advertising system, as Google and IAB Europe had listed the company as an approved vendor since 2020, apparently unaware of what it was Citizen Lab claims it was doing with that access.

Citizen Lab sifted through nearly four billion ad-bidding records and found Discover-Tech ads on more than 70,000 mobile apps and 120,000 websites between March and June 2026.

Some reached networks belonging to government agencies, defense organizations, and NATO. Researchers found no evidence that those organizations were infected, but they say the ads could have been used to profile devices on those networks.

The researchers said the operation also covertly directed millions of devices toward... READ MORE  https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/10/15/spyware-vendors-found-a-way-to-make-targeted-ads-even-worse/5303334

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The United States is destroying itself - The daily news can’t adequately convey the administration’s sabotaging of our government, economy, alliances and environment

‘Every department, every branch, every bureau and function of the federal government is being fatally corrupted or altogether dismantled or disabled.’ Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Rebecca Solnit 

Sun 12 Apr 2026

The United States is being murdered, and it’s an inside job. Every department, every branch, every bureau and function of the federal government is being fatally corrupted or altogether dismantled or disabled. All this is common knowledge, but because it dribbles out in news stories about this specific incident or department, the reports never adequately describe an administration sabotaging the functioning of the federal government and also trashing the global economy, international alliances and relationships, and the national and global environment in ways that will have downstream consequences for decades and perhaps, especially when it comes to climate, centuries.

Across the branches of government, the services that are supposed to protect us – nuclear stockpile monitoring, cybersecurity, counter-terrorism – are being undermined, understaffed or trashed. A different kind of protection that consists of public health, vaccination programs, food safety, clean air and water, social services, civil rights and the rule of law is also under attack. The federal government that serves us is being starved while the federal government that serves the Trump agenda and the oligarchy is glutting itself on taxpayer money, including the grotesque sums dumped on the Department of Homeland Security and the US military now being warped into Pete Hegseth’s twisted vision of a ruthless mercenary force. Hegseth has reportedly stood in the way of promotions for more than a dozen Black and female officers.

It is striking that the Trump team’s constant refrain is that we cannot afford to protect the vulnerable or provide for the people, which is why the richest person in the world, Elon Musk, atop Doge, destroyed USAID last year, which has already resulted in tens of thousands of deaths from starvation and preventable disease. The Iran war is creating a fertilizer crisis in Europe, Africa and Asia that may also result in widespread famine. Meanwhile, the former head of homeland security Kristi Noem spent more than $200m on an ad campaign starring herself before she was fired.

Although there are far worse things about the utterly gratuitous and literally unjustified war on Iran, the fact that it burns through billions a day is striking, given that huge cuts are being made to environmental protection and national parks, and the forest service is being effectively sabotaged, while public lands are being offered up to fossil fuel companies and mining interests. The forest service headquarters are being moved across the country, which will probably cause many resignations, like the similar move of the Bureau of Land Management in Trump’s first term. More than 50 forest service research stations are being cut, meaning more loss of irreplaceable ongoing research, data, facilities and staff.

Trump said in his droning dullard speech last week: “We can’t take care of daycare. We’re a big country ... We’re fighting wars ... It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.” Your money, our money, our public lands, our kids. Trump even bribed the builders of offshore windfarms almost a billion dollars to stop, just because he has a personal vendetta against the clean energy systems. The US used to lead the world in scientific research, including medical research, which had led to important breakthroughs in disease treatment and health, but all that has been slashed to the bone and beyond. This is murder.

The old aphorism about how long it takes an aircraft carrier to turn around might be why the nation seems relatively stable... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/12/united-states-trump-destruction

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Dear America- We should be supporting the people's needs, not state sponsored terrorism and the intentional starvation and torture of children.

A fragment of Irina Naji's recent painting HUNGER in Gaza, Palestine. All of her paintings are pages of her life in Gaza, Palestine.

Dear America

America arms Israel and Israel arms religious extremists, not only its own Zionist soldiers and settlers but also ISIS militancy & murder in Gaza. 

Stop and think- this is just plain wrong! 

So is our VETO of a Gaza ceasefire: 15 to 1. We are the 1 in the wrong.  The resolution called for an immediate ceasefire, release of all hostages and entry of humanitarian aid.

We should not be aiding and abetting Israel's violence and Zionist cruelty.  Nor should we be neutering our own judicial system by taking away contempt of court rulings (section 70302 of the just passed House Resolution HR1.)

FYI We also need the ICC [International Criminal Court] and we need to start listening to the knowledge, experience and better judgement of people who are not being brainwashed by a very foreign country that has been violating human rights and sovereign borders for decades, with every year bringing an escalation of depravity.

We should be supporting the people's needs, not state sponsored terrorism and the intentional starvation and torture of children.

We should be fully reinforcing and funding The United Nations, human rights, international law, UNESCO, and UNWRA.

We should also be fully fortifying our own libraries, schools, museums, and PBS (noncommercial radio + TV) for everyone.  

Invest in the right things- not more and more racist hate, injustice, violence & war.

Sincerely,

Anne Selden Annab

NOTES https://anniesnewletters.blogspot.com/search/label/Notes

"She was a shadow in human shape, curled in the ruins of a kitchen that no longer existed, feeding her infant an empty spoon. Over and over. “Eat,” she whispered, as if mercy could be faked long enough to save him. And the child obeyed. Because hunger makes gods of mothers, even when they have nothing left to give but lies. "

Today, Israeli forces have once again attacked a sacred Christian site: Al-Ahli Anglican Hospital in Gaza City. This time, they killed three journalists, two civilians, and wounded 30 others. The Episcopal Church of Jerusalem has condemned it as an “unprovoked assault”

People in Gaza have lost everything and need everything ... The only way to help is through the United Nations including UNWRA. UNWRA works. UNWRA has the expertise, experience and resources. The UN, including UNRWA, operated a system in Gaza with 400 distribution points—reaching people where they were. The current model excludes the most vulnerable.

Buying Time for Genocide - The US & Israel never wanted a ceasefire — blocking efforts for months while the US kept supplying weapons. #ARMSEMBARGONOW ... GAZA STRIPPED... and KILLING THE STORY anti-Palestian racism in media justifying Israeli violence & censoring rights-based language

"My Loyal Cactus" a Gaza poem by Ahmed Miqdad

Antisemitic and Islamophobic violence is rising in the United States. Both must stop: We have a duty to call out antisemitism when we see it. We also have an equal duty to remember that Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims are also being targeted

1945 Jaffa Port Palestine- Palestinian fishermen fixing their nets

Issa Amro is a Palestinian human rights defender: Our lives are blighted by illegal settlements, and 22 more have just been approved. Unless Israel is held to account, we will be erased

Letter from Gaza: The Nakba We Are Living Through "I have now become a refugee twice over: once from our historic village of Barbara, and now from Jabaliya." Hamza M.Salha Jun 02, 2025

Let's use the best tool we have: EDUCATION against ignorance, prejudice, hatred, genocide

More journalists have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza than in most major wars combined.

Gaza’s endangered heritage: 5,000 years of history at risk amid conflict

The MATH of modern GENOCIDE & the US weapons industry.

"The Holocaust did not start with gas chambers. This hatred gradually developed from words, stereotypes, and prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanisation and escalatin violence" Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau

FOLLOW HIM and FOLLOW HER and FOLLOW THEM

• Mosab Abu Toha
• Assal Rad
• Bisan Owda
• Dr. Ezzideen
• The United Nations
• UNWRA

Building a Culture of Peace ...

"The United Nations was not created to take mankind to heaven, but to save humanity from hell." ~Dag Hammarskjöld, second Secretary-General of the United Nations

My more recent Letters

Thank you NPR, for the compassionate listen into Palestinian life, trauma, and suffering that I heard on my car radio Saturday May 31, 2025 on WITF radio in Central Pennsylvania

This Earth Day please start noticing how much pollution and injustice war creates.

Tragedies abound here on planet earth, but at least we can try to make our world a better, more fair, just and secure place for more people.

Dear America- Racist times created hell on earth for "others" then, we really should know better now...

Funding religious extremists and charlatans is a recipe for disaster.

Dear America- Please do not let this tragic situation became a reason for more people to be treated more unequally, with more Palestinians and Palestinian Americans being doxed, destroyed, and displaced.

Life is not a video game. These are real human beings and American made weaponry has been creating a Holocaust with The Rule of Lawlessness in the Holy Land.

Dear America- Taxpayers' money should not be shoring up greed, corporate corruption, injustice, and war.

Please, let Golden Rule thinking and the rule of fair and just laws guide US all towards a better way forward.

State sponsored violence is not the way to convince vulnerable people to veer away from arming religious tyranny and terrorism.

Criticizing Israel is not Anti-Semitic. Calling for respect for human rights and the rule of fair and just laws is not Anti-Semitic. Countering the poisonous propaganda of a very foreign rogue nation state that interferes with our elections and our free speech is not Anti-Semitic... Americans should not be funding, arming, and/or excusing Israel in any way, shape, or form.

Please stop fueling corporate corruption, WAR, and escalating suffering for countless men, women, and children.

Israel, armed with American made weaponry and political support, invests in religious extremism and sets up families to be canon fodder for religious wars.... Israel claims to be Jewish, but what it really is is a cruel war machine that has been aggressively grabbing land, rights, and peace from the people of historic Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.

Hate crimes are escalating here in America with people primed by Zionism to think, say and do horrible things...

Dear America- Don't let American weaponry or words inspire even more religious extremism, terrorism, and state sponsored brutality world-wide

Slavery, Segregation and Forced Displacement are wrong. Wrong then and wrong now.

Please do not demonize and silence or destroy people who speak out peacefully against corruption, injustice, racism, bigotry, and violence of every type.

Frankly every Holocaust Museum on earth should have a wing added explaining the very real plight and suffering of the native non-Jewish Palestinians. 75 years and counting...

America should not help Israel commit crimes against humanity.

Dear America- letter sent to my elected leaders: Please understand that our friend Israel already is a one state "solution" that has been oppressing and intentionally displacing the native non-Jewish Palestinians for decades now.

The best idea is to start with full support for fair and just laws based on full respect for basic human rights.

Dear America- Freedom, justice and peace: These ideals should be our New Year's resolution- for everyone's sake.

Israel and its propagandists claim it is all about self-defense, but Israel is and has been the aggressor and the rule breaker.

Americans should focus on building peace - My letter published online in my local newspaper The Patriot News: "Our domestic and foreign policies should align to shape true justice, peace, and prosperity for all people, regardless of race or religion."

Dear Elected Officials- Stop poisoning the land, and undermining international law.

Silence is Complicity... and silence turns voters off, ensuring that Democracy dies in the darkness.

Our tax money should go to the people's needs- not war mongering and weapons manufacturing for foreign countries that use bigotry and injustice to determine who gets security and who gets their home demolished.

Dear America- We are in this collectively- no exceptions... Stop the hate- and the pollution of war.

Dear America- Don't let Israel drive a wedge between you and the truth.

Dear America, Please Help Stop Institutionalized Bigotry & Injustice

Dear America- Israel can not be trusted, and should not be subsidized

Don't give Israel the power to destroy the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, International Law, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights... and America.

Accusing peaceful pro-Palestine protesters of being "antisemitic" pleases Israel but it does not make any Jews any safer anywhere.

Send an honorable message far and wide- we believe in freedom of and from religion... and we believe in real justice, peace, and security for ALL !

"Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world..."   https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights