An Israeli digital advertising company used a broad network of online ads to track internet users and facilitate attempts to compromise their devices, Reuters reported, citing research by Citizen Lab and advertising security firm Confiant.
The two groups said Discover-Tech provided access to advertising platforms operated by Google, Comcast, Russia's Yandex, and other companies to Israeli spyware firm Candiru and other surveillance vendors. The findings were published separately by the Canadian cyber watchdog and the New York-based advertising security firm.
Discover-Tech's ads, which often promoted ordinary consumer products such as smartphones and earbuds, appeared across more than 120,000 websites and 75,000 applications through its various partnerships, Citizen Lab said. The researchers found that simply loading one of the ads could allow Discover-Tech to identify and track users, while some ads attempted to obtain phone numbers from smartphone users.
Some of the advertising infrastructure was also used to help deliver Candiru spyware, although Confiant said ads linked to the spyware represented only a small share of Discover-Tech's overall activity.
Ads reached sensitive networks globally, concentrated in Palestine
Confiant co-founder Jerome Dangu said Discover-Tech was distributing at least 10 million ads each day globally. He said agreements allowing companies to exchange tracking information, known as cookie matching, could extend the firm's ability to follow users beyond websites where its advertisements appeared.
"Very likely hundreds of millions of people would have been touched by Discover-Tech," Dangu said.
The researchers said Discover-Tech's advertising appeared in hundreds of networks considered sensitive, including those of the Pentagon, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the International Criminal Court.
Citizen Lab also identified advertisements appearing within networks belonging to the United Nations, NATO, the European Commission, and more than a dozen national governments.
Dangu said some areas, including the Palestinian territories, had particularly high concentrations of Discover-Tech advertising. "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 said it had identified evidence linking a powerful form of Candiru spyware delivered through Discover-Tech advertisements to the compromise of 45 Windows devices of Arab journalists.
Citizen Lab also identified Discover-Tech advertisements within networks belonging to companies including Nvidia, SanDisk, Broadcom, and Micron, as well as several unidentified media organizations in Mexico, occupied Palestine, and Europe.
The group said it identified Candiru and other surveillance providers associated with the advertising network and obtained information about possible user locations after Discover-Tech inadvertently exposed authentication logs online.
Source:Websites
