Politics
An Israeli company has reportedly been involved in monitoring internet users through online advertisements and helping gain unauthorized access to their devices. According to Reuters,
An Israeli company has reportedly been involved in monitoring internet users through online advertisements and helping gain unauthorized access to their devices. According to Reuters, two research organizations said in reports released on Thursday that Israeli digital advertising company Discover Tech had tracked users' activities through an extensive advertising network and helped facilitate access to their devices. The investigations found that Discover Tech's services enabled surveillance companies, including Israeli spyware developer Candiru, to gain access to advertising platforms operated by Google, Comcast and Russian technology company Yandex.
Separate investigations by Canada's cyber security research organization Citizen Lab and New York-based advertising security company Confidant found that the online advertising system, which has long raised privacy concerns, could also be exploited to conduct large-scale surveillance campaigns. Wolfe Christl, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, told Reuters that the current online advertising ecosystem poses a fundamental security threat affecting governments, the private sector, civil society and other stakeholders. According to Citizen Lab, advertisements distributed through Discover Tech included those for ordinary products such as mobile phones and wireless earbuds. Through various partners, these advertisements reached more than 120,000 websites and 75,000 applications.
