Citizen Lab Traces Zero-Click Candiru Spyware Infections at Al Jazeera to Targeted Online Ads

Citizen Lab identified a zero-click spyware campaign conducted by the Israeli firm Candiru, targeting Al Jazeera staff through malicious online ads served via Discover-Tech, a company posing as a legitimate digital advertising vendor. The attack exploited ad delivery infrastructure to silently deploy spyware without user interaction, with initial access established when targeted devices loaded malicious ads that triggered callbacks to attacker-controlled servers. At least 45 devices were targeted in 2024 and 2025, and the attack chain was confirmed through traffic logs and a recovered Windows malware sample linked to Candiru's known toolset.

AI-extracted · verify before operational use