Citizen Lab says it has confirmed the first publicly documented case of zero-click mercenary spyware spread through targeted online advertising, a method it calls 'AdFection.' The researchers say dozens of Al Jazeera devices were compromised via ads run by Discover-Tech, whose Controlium platform can profile and deanonymize internet users before silently infecting selected targets with no interaction required.
tech.slashdot.org
· 2026-10-15
Citizen Lab researchers identified a new spyware strain, called AdFection, that can infect phones and computers simply by displaying an ad, without any click required. The tool was built by Israeli firm Discover-Tech and used to target journalists and staff at Al Jazeera, NATO, the European Commission, NVIDIA and Arm, according to the report. Google has since suspended Discover-Tech from its ad platforms after a joint investigation with Citizen Lab and Confiant.
engadget.com
· 2026-10-15
Security researchers say devices at Al Jazeera were infected with Candiru spyware (rebranded 'Integrity Labs') through targeted online ads, a technique they call AdFection. They identify Israeli firm Discover-Tech as the buyer of the malicious ads, running a platform called Controlium that can de-anonymize and infect devices automatically when an ad loads, with analysis of four billion bidding records showing ads served across nearly 200,000 sites and apps.
citizenlab.ca
· 2026-10-15
Researchers at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab identified a campaign, named 'AdFection,' in which an Israeli-registered ad company allegedly linked to a spyware vendor's servers infected dozens of devices through digital advertising, with no action required from victims. Citizen Lab says this is the first publicly documented technical evidence of spyware being distributed this way.
wired.com
· 2026-10-15
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