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Australia's nuclear agency targeted with ads linked to spyware that infect devices without a click (www.abc.net.au)
submitted 3 weeks ago by to c/australianpolitics@aussie.zone
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Cam Wilson @camwilson@mastodon.social:

Research group, The Citizen Lab, said it found proof that an Israel-based company exploited digital advertising technology to install back doors onto devices, merely by the victim viewing an advertisement on a website or in an app.

This exploit — called ''zero-click mercenary spyware" — allowed bad actors to run code on devices that installed software that acted as a back door to the device, allowing them to access things like passwords, emails and details of internal systems.

The Citizen Lab claims that a company, Discover-Tech, acted as the go-between for online advertising platforms like Google and spyware and hacking companies. At least one of those, Candiru, has been placed under US export controls because of its "malicious cyber activities".

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[–] 22 points 3 weeks ago* (4 children)

I keep telling the IT people at work...

They've installed enpoint protection that reduces my PC performance by 70%.

They've got so much auth that most things are 4FA.

Services on a virtual desktop through a VPN still need have HTTPS.

The ACLs are so tight that I have to wait weeks on a ticket to make two PCs communicate in the same room.

Session timeouts are so short that I spend half my day reauthenticating with stuff.

Then they don't block ads. Every time I've seen an infected machine, the attack vector has been an ad. It's the only security measure that makes life better for the users, and they don't do it.

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    • [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago

    https://archivegenocide.com/scan/index.html

    In case anyone wanted to check if they'd been tagged

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    [–] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    this kinda broke last week...

    https://www.itnews.com.au/news/australian-gov-media-networks-reached-by-israeli-firms-spy-ads-629705 https://citizenlab.ca/research/how-discover-tech-turned-targeted-ads-into-a-pipeline-for-spyware/

    conspiracy theory me is wondering why it took 4~5 days to turn up on the abc and why the rest of the media is ignoring it...

    in a week where the talking heads cant stfu about paying tax with a credit card bs... "israel hacked ansto" is a pretty killer fucking headline.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago

    This is why we need to actively support independent media in Australia.

    I'll be interested to see if Michael West, Independent Australia, Anthony Lowenstein, Lamestream, Dropsite, Ette, Pearls and Irritations go on this pretty hard. Their, et al, journalism is having a positive effect holding mainstream media to account.

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    • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

    A couple of days ago I put up the this post about Discover-Tech: https://aussie.zone/post/37592418

    It seems now the threat is being taken more seriously. Can someone tell me if there is a straightforward way to ad block on my lap top ( I don't have a smart phone) or should I go to a computer business? I am not techno-fluent at all.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

    Can someone tell me if there is a straightforward way to ad block on my lap top

    At the most basic, using the Firefox browser with the uBlock Origin extension installed: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/

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  • [–] 4 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

    Thanks z_g

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

    Also advise you use extensions like Privacybadger and Ghostery to block the facebooks and amazons of the internet from hammering you with cookies and tracing your clicks

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 3 weeks ago*

    Seconding the recommendation for Firefox, which is the only mainstream browser that will allow an ad blocker that isn't compromised.

    Google Chrome cripples effective ad blockers (like uBlock Origin, which I also recommend), unsurprisingly because Google is one of the major forces wanting to push adverts. So it's inherently insecure by comparison.

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