Australian nuclear agency targeted by ad-delivered zero-click spyware
Australia's nuclear agency targeted with ads linked to spyware that infect devices without a click
A report by Citizen Lab, a research group at the University of Toronto, says an Israel-based company used online advertising technology to deliver zero-click commercial spyware to millions of devices, and that the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and other Australian government, critical infrastructure and media networks appear on the list of those affected. The report attributes the campaign to Discover-Tech, saying it bid on advertising platforms such as Google and placed ads that looked normal but carried code that could install a backdoor on devices and obtain passwords, emails and internal system information. Citizen Lab said it traced the process on an Al Jazeera device from seeing an infected ad to contacting its servers to files being loaded onto the computer, and noted that merely viewing an ad does not guarantee a device is successfully infected. ANSTO said it had found no impact on its facilities, systems or information; Google removed Discover-Tech from its platform after researchers notified it.