Israeli adtech firm Discover-Tech used online ads to operate a global spy network targeting millions of people, including Al Jazeera journalists, a new report has revealed.
Presenting as a legitimate company, Discover-Tech purchased malicious online ads to infect devices with spyware from Candiru, an Israeli firm blacklisted by the US government.
Discover-Tech ran a platform called Controlium to “automatically infect devices the moment an advertisement is rendered – a form of zero-click attack,” according to a report by Citizen Lab, a research group at the University of Toronto, and cybersecurity firm Confiant.
The ads were displayed in over 70,000 mobile apps and more than 120,000 websites between March and June 2026, impacting millions of users globally, the report found.
“This is the first-ever public confirmation of zero-click mercenary spyware delivered via targeted ads,” it said.
“Discover-Tech’s ads also covertly directed millions of devices to contact Candiru’s servers, likely for large-scale tracking and reconnaissance.”
Broadcaster Al Jazeera said it reached out to Citizen Lab when it was targeted in 2024 and 2025.
“Al Jazeera worked voluntarily with Citizen Lab’s researchers, and… that cooperation helped verify and publicly document these attacks,” the network said in a statement.
“The targeting of journalists is an attack on press freedom and on the public’s right to know. Those responsible must be held accountable.”
Israel raided the offices of the Qatari news network in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah in 2024, ordering it to shut down its operations. At least 12 of the network’s journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since the start of Israel’s genocide in October 2023. In June this year, Al Jazeera condemned Israel’s “deliberate killing” of its cameraman, Ahmed Wishah.
The report said Discover-Tech ads reached national security agencies, various ministries of defence, Nato and several international media networks, but did not find evidence linking the attacks to the Israeli government.
Novara Media approached Discover-Tech for comment.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged governments and authorities to investigate the attacks, particularly those targeting journalists.
“The mass surveillance architecture supporting online advertising is being harnessed for other purposes and puts journalists at risk,” said Jonathan Rozen, CPJ’s deputy director of research.
“Citizen Lab’s findings that Al Jazeera devices were infected with spyware delivered via targeted ads make these surveillance dangers even clearer.”
Since 2023, Israel has killed more than 240 journalists and media workers, more than any other government, the press freedom group has said.
From Novara Media via This RSS Feed.