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:
- CVE-2026-31381, CVE-2026-31382: Gainsight Assist Information Disclosure and Cross-Site Scripting (FIXED)
March 20, 2026
Rapid7 Labs recently identified a chain of security vulnerabilities in the Gainsight Assist plugin and its interactions with the associated domain app.gainsight.com. These vulnerabilities include an Information Disclosure flaw (CVE-2026-31381) and a Reflected Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability (CVE-2026-31382). By chaining these vulnerabilities, an attacker can move from passive information gathering to active client-side exploitation. The XSS ...
- Russian Intelligence Services Target Commercial Messaging Application Accounts
March 20, 2026
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are jointly issuing this public service announcement (PSA) to warn the public about ongoing phishing campaigns by cyber actors associated with the Russian Intelligence Services (RIS) targeting commercial messaging applications (CMAs). RIS actors have compromised individual CMA accounts, but not CMAs’ encryption ...
- Government of Iran Cyber Actors Deploy Telegram C2 to Push Malware to Identified Targets
March 20, 2026
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is releasing this FLASH to disseminate information on malicious cyber activity conducted by actors on behalf of the Government of Iran Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). Specifically, MOIS cyber actors are responsible for using Telegram as a command-and-control (C2) infrastructure to push malware targeting Iranian dissidents, journalists opposed to ...
- French naval officer’s jogging app logs Inadvertently expose France’s aircraft carrier location
March 20, 2026
The relentless pursuit of a personal best is a common motivator for athletes, but for one French naval officer, a routine morning run has now been linked to a national security scare. While the French military typically prides itself on stealth and strategic positioning, the precise coordinates of its flagship were recently broadcast worldwide via a ...
- Cambodia: 9 foreigners nabbed in Phnom Penh cyber-scam raid
March 20, 2026
Eight Chinese nationals and one Malaysian were detained during a raid on a gated community in the capital on Wednesday. A joint force from the Phnom Penh Administrative Unified Command raided a property in the Borey Peng Huot development, located in the Niroth area of Chbar Ampov district. During the operation, officers seized 247 mobile phones ...
- Hasta la vista, Hastalamuerte: An Overview of The Gentlemen’s TTPs
March 19, 2026
In face of so many new ransomware brands, and still remaining RaaS operations such as Medusa, Qilin, and DragonForce, prioritizing is not an easy task to accomplish. However, despite the amount of groups conducting attacks for extortion, the TTPs do not change that much; unless we are talking about Cl0p, Akira and other groups that ...