Governments are hacking people with ‘zero-click’ spyware by showing them online ads


Security researchers at digital rights unit The Citizen Lab say government spyware makers are abusing global advertising networks to target and hack devices by serving malicious online adverts.

A new report published Thursday by the University of Toronto lab, which investigates surveillance and digital rights abuses, said an Israeli company called Discover-Tech allows spyware makers to use its advertising platform to target specific people or devices almost anywhere in the world with spyware capable of invisibly stealing their data.

The researchers say Discover-Tech presents itself as a legitimate advertising firm, but instead serves as a “bridge between ad vendors and the mercenary spyware ecosystem.”

Read more…
Source:  TechCrunch News


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • Classified Japanese diplomatic info leaked after Chinese cyberattacks in 2020

    February 5, 2024

    Classified Japanese diplomatic information was leaked following Chinese cyberattacks on the Foreign Ministry in 2020, a government source said Monday, exposing the nation’s digital vulnerability. Japan detected the large-scale attack and release of diplomatic telegrams during a period of government under then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the source said, but the nature of the leaked information ...

  • Researchers remotely exploit devices used to manage safe aircraft landings and takeoffs

    February 3, 2024

    Criminals could remotely tamper with the data that apps used by airplane pilots rely on to inform safe takeoff and landing procedures, according to fresh research. In a scenario that elicits strong memories of that nail-biting flight scene from Die Hard 2, researchers investigating electronic flight bags (EFBs) found the app used by Airbus pilots was ...

  • Philippines: Cyber attack on Overseas Workers Welfare Administration website foiled

    February 3, 2024

    The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has prevented a cyber attack aimed at taking down the website of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA). At the Saturday News Forum, DICT Undersecretary for Cybersecurity Jeff Ian Dy said the DICT was able to “defend” various web applications related to OWWA from cyber attacks. The DICT ...

  • Europcar’s Alleged Data Breach Wasn’t Done Using AI, Experts Argue

    February 2, 2024

    French car rental company Europcar made headlines earlier this week following reports of an alleged data breach affecting nearly 50 million customers. Cyber security platform HackManac reported the incident on January 30th, noting that the stolen database containing usernames, passwords, full names, addresses, and several other user-identifying information had been listed for sale on a hacking ...

  • Cloudflare blames previous Okta breach for November 2023 cyberattack

    February 2, 2024

    Cloudflare is laying the blame for the cyberattack it suffered late last year the after-effects of the critical Okta breach. The content delivery service provider has published a blog post detailing the cybersecurity incident it suffered on Thanksgiving Day 2023, noting that on November 23, 2023, a threat actor accessed the company’s self-hosted Atlassian server. Read more… Source: ...

  • There Are Too Many Damn Honeypots

    February 2, 2024

    Determining the number of internet-facing hosts affected by a new vulnerability is a key factor in determining if it will become a widespread or emergent threat. Are there a lot of hosts affected? Pretty good possibility things are about to pop off. Only a few hosts? Probably less likely. But actually, counting those hosts has become ...