Israeli digital advertising company Discover-Tech has been accused of spying on people through online ads. According to two research groups, the company was tracking the identity and activities of internet users with the help of advertisements. Some ads also tried to install spyware on people’s mobiles and computers.
Canadian cyber research group Citizen Lab and New York-based advertising security company Confient gave this information in separate reports on Thursday. According to Reuters, Discover-Tech’s services used the advertising networks of the Israeli spyware company Candiru and other surveillance companies from Google, Comcast and Russia’s Yandex.
As soon as the ad opened, the spying began
According to Citizen Lab, Discover-Tech’s ads were shown on more than 1.2 lakh websites and 75 thousand apps. This also includes advertisements for common products such as mobile phones and earbuds. The process of identifying and tracking the user could begin as soon as the ad opens on these websites or apps. Research groups say that in some cases, attempts were also made to extract phone numbers of smartphone users. That means the user doesn’t need to click on any link, just loading the ad can be enough for spying.
According to both groups, some ads tried to introduce Candiru spyware into the device. However, Confiant said that ads related to Candiru are a very small part of the company’s total ads.
Claims to show one crore ads daily
According to Jerome Dangu, co-founder of Confiant, the company was serving at least one million ads per day worldwide. Data was shared between companies through a system called cookie matching. This can make it possible to track people even on other platforms where ads are not visible. Dangu estimates that millions of people could be affected by this network.
Discover-Tech was founded in 2020. The company and its CEO Dakel Boni did not respond to messages seeking comment. Reuters also did not get a response from Candiru’s owners.
45 Al Jazeera computers affected
According to Citizen Lab, the Candiru spyware, distributed by Discover-Tech ads, infected 45 Windows computers of the Qatari news channel Al Jazeera between 2024 and 2025. The group said Al Jazeera had shared records with its network, which could confirm this.
The US put Kendiru on the banned list in 2021. He was accused of providing spyware used to target government officials, journalists, social workers and academics. According to the research groups, the case shows that online advertisements can be used not only to sell products but also to invade people’s privacy and spy.
