What happened
Israeli advertising technology company Discover-Tech has been linked to a suspected surveillance effort targeting Starlink users, according to a Reuters report citing six people familiar with the matter. The firm was reportedly the top bidder for ad space tied to Starlink traffic in more than 100 countries.
The findings trace back to an October 15 report by TrendAI, the research arm of Trend Micro, which described the activity under the codename "Shadow-Earth-79" without naming a company. Sources told Reuters the codename belongs to Discover-Tech.
How the method works
Online ads are sold through real-time auctions, and each bid request can carry details about the person on the other end. Collected over time and combined with other data, that information could be used to identify people, follow their activity across the web, or select targets for spyware.
According to TrendAI, Shadow-Earth-79 was the largest ad buyer in Syria, Libya, Yemen and South Sudan, and the second largest in Afghanistan, while also claiming unusually large bid shares in Hungary, Israel, Egypt, Azerbaijan and Venezuela. Researchers say the pattern points to "targeting and tracking infrastructure rather than a commercial advertising operation."
Already under scrutiny
On the same day, Citizen Lab and ad security firm Confiant separately named Discover-Tech, alleging it used ad auctions to collect data on users across sensitive networks tied to media organizations, governments and tech firms. Google and Comcast said they removed the company from their ad platforms, and a major U.S. technology company and an international organization have opened internal inquiries into whether their employees were targeted.
Why Starlink matters
Starlink operates outside conventional telecom networks, making it a lifeline where governments restrict internet access and its users an attractive target for those same governments. The report notes it remains unclear whether Discover-Tech actually used Starlink-related data.
