Israeli spyware infected millions of phones via online ads

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An Israeli surveillance technology firm has run a large-scale operation to infect mobile phones with spyware using online advertisements to hack the devices, researchers said on Thursday.

An investigation by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab and cybersecurity firm Confiant Threat Intelligence laid bare an ad-based infection technique developed by an Israeli company that researchers named “AdFection.” The hacks weaponized legitimate online ad systems for espionage purposes, allowing spyware manufacturers to connect to millions of devices and identify, track and target victims.

“Plugging into the online ads ecosystem provides the mercenary spyware industry a stealthy delivery system,” said Bill Marczak, senior researcher at The Citizen Lab. He said the findings were “surely just the tip of the iceberg” of how online ads are abused for espionage.

Researchers discovered critical details of the hacking tools by analyzing devices belonging to journalists and staff at the Al Jazeera media network, finding that 45 devices of journalists and staff were targeted and some infected with Israeli-made spyware known as Candiru.

At the heart of the hacking campaign is the Israeli company Discover-Tech that describes itself as an advertising business. Citizen Lab researchers said the company facilitated surveillance for commercial spyware operators. Its platform, called Controlium, allegedly allowed spyware makers like Candiru — which in 2025 was acquired by Integrity Labs — to identify, track and target devices by loading advertisements on websites and apps.

Discover-Tech and Integrity Labs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The scale is striking: An analysis of four billion advertising records found that Discover-Tech’s ads appeared across nearly 200,000 websites and mobile apps in dozens of countries over four months. Among the websites that featured the ads were institutional sites of NATO, the United Nations, the European Parliament, European Commission and Council of the EU.

The technique exploits real-time bidding — the automated system used by platforms such as Google to sell advertising space and target users. Rather than persuading victims to click a malicious link, attackers can exploit advertisements to identify and potentially infect devices without any interaction from the user — a technique known as “zero-click” infections.

Discover-Tech’s advertisements directed millions of devices to servers associated with Candiru, potentially enabling large-scale surveillance and reconnaissance, researchers said. That does not mean all those devices were infected.

Citizen Lab, based in Toronto, is a globally recognized research group that previously uncovered spyware scandals targeting Catalan political figures , a member of the European Parliament and the inner circle of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi .

The findings triggered calls for further investigation on Thursday. “The possibility that EU institutions have been exposed should set off alarm bells across Brussels,” said Hannah Neumann, a German European Parliament lawmaker of the Greens group. Neumann herself was the victim of a cyber-espionage operation by an Iranian hacking group.

“Europe cannot claim to defend democracy while leaving its own democratic institutions vulnerable to spyware,” Neumann said.