Citizen Lab investigation links Discover-Tech to spyware delivery through ads

Discover-Tech used advertising infrastructure to locate targeted people and deliver spyware without requiring them to click, according to a Citizen Lab investigation described by Pluralistic. Targets included computers used by Al Jazeera workers, which were attacked with Candiru malware. The account says Discover-Tech used persistent advertising identifiers to find targets and served malicious ads exploiting previously unknown vulnerabilities. Loading a page or opening an app carrying those ads could trigger a device compromise. Discover-Tech held supplier certifications from Google, Yandex, Microsoft, Beeswax and IAB, giving it access to more than four billion ad auctions. The reported attacks targeted selected users rather than every person exposed to those advertising networks.