The Israeli firm flooded Starlink users with ads in a suspicious surveillance campaign Experts at a digital security firm recently discovered that an Israeli ad technology firm is targeting users of Starlink's satellite Internet service, potentially as part of an effort to spy on them, according to Reuters citing six people familiar with the matter. Researchers at TrendAI, a division of Tokyo-based cybersecurity firm Trend Micro, discovered that Israeli company Discover-Tech was among the largest sources of digital advertisements served to Starlink users. The ads were likely used to determine users' geographic location or otherwise monitor their activity, the six sources said. The researchers based their findings on digital advertising data collected using TrendAI's telemetry systems. Their analysis showed that Discover-Tech emerged as one of the world's leading providers of advertising targeting Starlink users, ranking first in Starlink traffic in more than 100 countries, including several where satellite Internet service is prohibited or restricted. Bidding is part of the automated bidding system through which advertisers compete to place ads in users' browsers and apps. On October 15, TrendAI published a report that examined the targeting of Starlink users but did not identify Discover-Tech by name. Instead, it attributed the activity to an "advertising technology entity" known as "shadow-79". According to the six sources, shadow-earth-79 is TrendAI's codename for Discover-Tech. TrendAI did not directly address questions about why its report withheld the names of the entities. In a statement, the company said its approach to attribution is designed to minimize the risk of error and avoid "hype-driven labels" or "unstable actor names that can mislead defenders, distort risk priorities and trigger inappropriate response actions." ".

The Israeli firm flooded Starlink users with ads in a suspicious surveillance campaign Experts at a digital security firm recently discovered that an Israeli ad technology firm is targeting users of Starlink's satellite Internet service, potentially as part of an effort to spy on them, according to Reuters citing six people familiar with the matter. Researchers at TrendAI, a division of Tokyo-based cybersecurity firm Trend Micro, discovered that Israeli company Discover-Tech was among the largest sources of digital advertisements served to Starlink users. The ads were likely used to determine users' geographic location or otherwise monitor their activity, the six sources said. The researchers based their findings on digital advertising data collected using TrendAI's telemetry systems. Their analysis showed that Discover-Tech emerged as one of the world's leading providers of advertising targeting Starlink users, ranking first in Starlink traffic in more than 100 countries, including several where satellite Internet service is prohibited or restricted. Bidding is part of the automated bidding system through which advertisers compete to place ads in users' browsers and apps. On October 15, TrendAI published a report that examined the targeting of Starlink users but did not identify Discover-Tech by name. Instead, it attributed the activity to an "advertising technology entity" known as "shadow-79". According to the six sources, shadow-earth-79 is TrendAI's codename for Discover-Tech. TrendAI did not directly address questions about why its report withheld the names of the entities. In a statement, the company said its approach to attribution is designed to minimize the risk of error and avoid "hype-driven labels" or "unstable actor names that can mislead defenders, distort risk priorities and trigger inappropriate response actions." ".