Candiru spyware infects Al Jazeera, Senators AI request, Microsoft crashes phishers

According to researchers at
The Citizen Lab
, based at the University of Toronto, this is the “first public, technical confirmation that mercenary spyware has reached real devices through targeted ads.” They stated that Candiru, an Israeli maker of spyware usually sold to governments, infected devices at the news network @Al Jazeera through ordinary online ads, in attacks that needed no click or other action from the user. The ads were placed by Discover-Tech, an Israeli company that presents as an advertising firm. Each ad carried a small piece of code that, when the ad loaded, decided whether the device…