This is the first-ever public confirmation of zero-click mercenary spyware delivered via targeted ads. We call the technique AdFection, and show how it was used to infect devices at Al Jazeera with Candiru’s spyware. We also uncover Discover-Tech, and show how the company helps mercenary surveillance vendors track and hack devices around the world.
Online ads weaponised to deliver ‘zero-click’ spyware, researchers say
Discover-Tech’s Controlium software lets clients mass-profile internet users then covertly hack targets, say researchers at University of Toronto
ADINT: Weaponized Ad Tech for Zero-Click Spyware and Mass Identity Vacuuming
Confiant Threat Intelligence - security@confiant.com
ADINT: Weaponized Ad Tech for Zero-Click Spyware and Mass Identity Vacuuming
Confiant Threat Intelligence - security@confiant.com
Using Ads to Sustain Open Source
Why someone who loves Privacy Badger, uses a non-tracking browser, and never cared for ads, is advocating their ethical use for open…
Scam Ads Are Flooding Social Media. These Former Meta Staffers Have a Plan
Rob Leathern and Rob Goldman, who both worked at Meta, are launching a new nonprofit that aims to bring transparency to an increasingly opaque, scam-filled social media ecosystem.
From LinkedIn to Tailored Attack in 30 Minutes: How AI Accelerates Target Profiling for Cybercrime | TrendAI (US)
The industrialization of AI-driven OSINT has transformed individual digital footprints into machine-readable intelligence at scale, enabling attackers to operationalize personalized reconnaissance at volume.
Ads and Ad blockers
Last time, we shared how ethical advertising works to keep Read the Docs sustainable without creepy ad targeting. This time, we will share about one of our biggest challenges with advertising. At the beginning of April, Read the Docs was added to one of the most popular ad block lists: the Easyli...
This Tool Unmasks the Shadowy World of Ads that Track Your Location
It's usually very difficult to investigate the advertising industry. A new tool called DecryptAds aims to make it much easier with a massive dataset anyone can query.
Meta’s “Trusted Experts” helped me run scam ads on Facebook and Instagram
A Reuters reporter created ads promising unrealistic investment returns and easily placed them on Meta's social media platforms.
AI may fatally wound web’s ad model, warns Tim Berners-Lee
Web inventor warns reliance on AI agents threatens multibillion-dollar revenues for Google and Meta
216,000,000 Spy TVs | The LG Smart TV Problem
Pwning Agentic AI Part I: Your AI Agent Is Already Compromised | TrendAI (US)
Organizations are rapidly connecting AI agents to their databases, document pipelines, and internal tools, creating privileged components that read untrusted input as part of their job. TrendAI™ Research examines how attackers turn these agents against you through return-to-tool (RTT) exploits, and what this means for the future of agentic AI security.
Ad Tech Says It’s Not In The Surveillance Business. Now Is The Time To Prove It | AdExchanger
ICE wants to know how ad tech and location data could aid investigations. The question is: Will ad tech finally draw a line – or cross one?
Anatomy of a Frontier Lab Agent Intrusion: A Technical Timeline of the July 2026 Incident
Hugging Face just released this extremely detailed technical description of OpenAI's recent accidental cyberattack against their infrastructure. This attack was very sophisticated, and the resulting document doubles as a crash-course …
New: a new tool called DecryptAds unmasks the shadowy world of ad companies that track your phone's location. It is incredibly difficult to investigate this world, but DecryptAds pulls together public data in a wholly unique way to make digging through this possible 404media.co/this-tool-unmasks-the-shadowy…
This Tool Unmasks the Shadowy World of Ads that Track Your Location
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