Ads Used to Deliver Zero‑Click Spyware

Citizen Lab publicly documents 'AdFection': targeted online ads served by a firm called Discover‑Tech (platform: Controlium) that harvest a viewer's identity/IP from the ad impression and, for preselected targets, trigger delivery of zero‑click mercenary spyware—reportedly compromising devices at Al Jazeera. The technique deanonymizes and profiles users at scale, then enables remote compromise without any victim interaction. — If true, mainstream ad infrastructure is now an attack surface for state and mercenary surveillance, raising urgent questions for platform governance, press safety, and regulation of ad‑tech data flows.