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Surveillance control · 15.10.2026

Ad Network Turned Spyware Tool Tracked Millions Worldwide

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A regular headphone ad turned out to be a surveillance tool — beautifully done, nothing to say.

According to Citizen Lab and Confiant, Israeli ad company Discover-Tech built an online advertising network that didn't just push products — it tracked users and helped hack their devices. Through partnerships with ad platforms from Google, Comcast, Yandex, and other companies, access to Discover-Tech's tools was granted to Candiru — an Israeli spyware developer blacklisted by the US Commerce Department back in 2021 for surveilling officials, journalists, and activists.

The scale is anything but modest: Discover-Tech's ads reached over 120,000 websites and 75,000 apps, with the company serving at least 10 million ads per day worldwide. Thanks to cookie data sharing, tracking occurred even where no ads were displayed. According to Confiant's estimates, hundreds of millions of people could have been affected. A single banner load was enough for tracking — and sometimes the company also tried to extract the user's phone number.

Through these same advertising channels, Candiru's spyware made its way onto 45 Windows devices belonging to Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera in 2024–2025 — confirmed by Citizen Lab after gaining access to the newsroom's network logs. Al Jazeera stated it condemns the attacks on its staff and demands that those responsible be held accountable.

The geography is striking: Discover-Tech's ads turned up on the networks of the Pentagon, the IAEA, the International Criminal Court, the UN, NATO, the European Commission, and more than a dozen national governments, as well as on those of chipmakers Nvidia, Sandisk, Broadcom, and Micron. Particularly notable is the extreme density of coverage in Gaza and the West Bank — according to Confiant, the company's banner appears on nearly every website there, providing "full visibility into the digital activity of an entire country."

The market's response was surprisingly swift: Google cut off Discover-Tech from its ad platforms for "systematic policy violations," IAB Europe removed the company from its list of approved vendors, and Comcast, through its subsidiary Beeswax, also shut the door on it. Discover-Tech itself did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon acknowledged that US military personnel in combat zones had been tracked through geolocation data collected by ad brokers. Ad tracking has now been disabled on some devices. Just an ordinary headphone banner, you say?

Source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-911800