An Israeli surveillance technology firm has run a large-scale operation to infect mobile phones with spyware using online advertisements to hack the devices, researchers said on Thursday.

Here is a bit more information that might help, I posted this in privacy too.

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[–] 9 points 1 hour ago

Running an ad blocker has been a matter of national and personal security for some time now.

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  • [–] 13 points 3 hours ago (1 child)

    I don't remember the last time I loaded an app that has ads. Almost every app I have is from github or f-droid.

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  • [–] 8 points 3 hours ago* (3 children)

    I don't really full understand the concept of "zero click" ads, and how that could possibly work. I would assume a browser should be robust enough to block unwanted downloads?

    Pretty scary stuff if just seeing a ad on a random website is enough for something to be installed on a phone or a pc.

    Anyone with more knowledge, can you elaborate?

    Also, I am using a full network ad blocker similar to Pihole. I barely see any ads on websites or apps, when connected to my home network (either through WiFi or VPN to my home)

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  • [–] 7 points 2 hours ago (1 child)

    “Zero click” means you’ve already given something permission to run on your device.

    In this case, the ad network had permission to run scripts on the device, and they abused that privilege to run scripts that could install spyware.

    People like us who have always blocked active scripts and ads aren’t vulnerable to most of these “zero click” attacks because we already distrust the mechanisms they abuse.

    It’s why I prefer my email and texts to be pute text too, with no automation set to take action based on incoming unvetted content.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 minutes ago

    It’s why I prefer my email and texts to be pute text too, with no automation set to take action based on incoming unvetted content.

    An excellent point, I disable loading email images in every client I use, even if for no other reason than not giving them a way to recognize that the email was read and subsequently list me as a live target.

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  • [–] 18 points 4 hours ago (7 children)

    Internet gonna be off limits to most people soon enough… There’s spyware like this, but it’s a proof of concept that random a-hole hackers will develop into lolz…

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  • [–] [S] 7 points 4 hours ago (6 children)

    They will even use ai models with the guard rails removed to help.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 hour ago (5 children)

    Tangential but, dude, how did you not go with the unsername “this guy fawkes” instead. Grab that alt right this instant.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 hour ago (4 children)

    How would that make a difference?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 hour ago (3 children)

    Your current one doesn’t read as a cheeky double entendre to me. More power to you if that’s your style.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 hour ago (2 children)

    And cheddar goblin does? lol. The name is good enough.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 hour ago (1 child)

    It has layers of meaning. No need to get rustled homes, I was just making a cheeky joke.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 hour ago*

    No need to get rustled homes

    I haven't heard something like this since the 90's. When the world seemed better... I also just realized the joke in the name you were suggesting, lol. For some reason it wasn't connecting with me.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 hours ago

    finally an indication of how it works. smartphone or windows and apparently stopped by an ad block.

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  • [–] 14 points 4 hours ago* (3 children)

    On Android, install the FOSS vpn ad blocker AdAway from F-Droid to block ads within apps. It isn't perfect though, can't stop Spotify ads

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