Report: Israeli company spied on hundreds of millions of users via online ads

Reports by Citizen Lab and Confiant reveal that the Israeli company Discover-Tech spied on hundreds of millions of users through malicious ads on 120,000 websites and 75,000 apps, including networks of the Pentagon, the UN, and the European Commission. Merely loading the ad enabled tracking.

Reports by researchers at Citizen Lab and Confiant expose a mass espionage scheme using online ads, involving the Israeli company Discover-Tech. According to the reports, the company used malicious ads that appeared on over 120,000 websites and 75,000 apps, including networks used by the Pentagon, the UN, and the European Commission. Merely loading the ad enabled identification and tracking of users, and in some cases attempts to extract phone numbers. Separately, spyware from the Israeli company Candiru was reported to have infected 45 devices at Al Jazeera. Google and Comcast removed Discover-Tech from their advertising platforms, and IAB Europe suspended the company's operations.