Spyware can infect your phone or computer via the ads you see online - report [View all]

[usonian]

Posted in GD because ad-delivered malware can infect everyone, and because ads can be blocked.
If you want to support a site like DU, get a star.

Ads also tarnish search ranking. And they surveil you though tracking bugs in the ads.
Not that anyone uses search.

Insanet’s spyware, Sherlock, is not the first spyware that can be installed on a phone without the need to trick the phone’s owner into clicking on a malicious link or downloading a malicious file. NSO’s iPhone-hacking Pegasus, for instance, is one of the most controversial spyware tools to emerge in the past five years.




Diagram showing the different entities involved in real time bidding, and the requests and responses. When you see an ad on a web page, behind the scenes an ad network has just automatically conducted an auction to decide which advertiser won the right to present their ad to you. Eric Zeng, CC BY-ND

What sets Insanet’s Sherlock apart from Pegasus is its exploitation of ad networks rather than vulnerabilities in phones. A Sherlock user creates an ad campaign that narrowly focuses on the target’s demographic and location, and places a spyware-laden ad with an ad exchange. Once the ad is served to a web page that the target views, the spyware is secretly installed on the target’s phone or computer.

More here:
https://theconversation.com/spyware-can-infect-your-phone-or-computer-via-the-ads-you-see-online-report-213685


Lots more here: Original Article.
https://archive.md/irhB5
Revealed: Israeli Cyber Firms Have Developed an 'Insane' New Spyware Tool. No Defense Exists

A Haaretz investigation reveals that Israeli cyber companies developed technology that exploits the advertising system at the heart of the online economy to monitor civilians, hack into their phones and computers, and spy on them. This terrifying capability, against which no defense currently exists, has already been sold to a nondemocratic country.


Classic article:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/oct/24/advertising-poison-hooked

Advertising is a poison that demeans even love – and we're hooked on it
George Monbiot

Disclaimer: some will disagree with me, and some have done so, but unlike magazine ads, online ads burden your browsing experience, can deliver malware, and surveil you. I never heard of poison ink, nor a bug/AirTag/RFID in a magazine.

Yet. 👽