Israeli ad firm accused of spying through millions of online ads and helping hackers plant spyware

Israeli ad firm accused of spying through millions of online ads and helping hackers plant spyware

Researchers say Discover-Tech used ads appearing on more than 120,000 websites and 75,000 apps to track users and help deliver Candiru spyware; 45 Al Jazeera computers were compromised, while Google and other advertising platforms have cut ties with the company

The researchers said Discover-Tech's services gave Israeli surveillance companies, including US-blacklisted spyware developer Candiru, access to major digital advertising platforms operated by Google, Comcast, Russia's Yandex and other companies.

"The way online advertising works today is a systemic security threat," Citizen Lab senior researcher Wolfie Christl told Reuters. "For states, the private sector, civil society and everyone else alike."

"Very likely hundreds of millions of people would have been touched by Discover-Tech," Dangu said.

Al Jazeera condemned the attacks on its employees and said it was strengthening its security measures.

"Those responsible must be held accountable," the broadcaster said.

"You go to almost any site in Palestine — any site — you find a Discover-Tech ad. It gives them a very complete visibility on the digital activities of an entire country," he said.

Citizen Lab also discovered that Discover-Tech had inadvertently exposed authentication records showing users accessing its services from internet addresses in Israel, Europe and the Gulf.

Following the investigations, major advertising companies began removing Discover-Tech from their systems. Google confirmed that it had worked with Citizen Lab and Confiant and expelled Discover-Tech from its platforms for "systematically violating our policies."

The European digital advertising association IAB Europe suspended the company from its list of approved vendors last week after identifying policy violations, while Comcast subsidiary Beeswax also removed it from its advertising platform.

Discover-Tech did not respond to Reuters' requests for . Its chief executive, Dekel Boni, also did not respond to messages, and efforts to Candiru's owners were unsuccessful. Yandex did not respond to requests for .

The findings come amid growing concerns that digital advertising technology poses national security risks. Earlier this year, the Pentagon said US military personnel deployed to war zones had been targeted using location data collected by advertising technology companies and data brokers, prompting parts of the military to disable advertising tracking on certain devices.