October 28, 2026
Recent cybersecurity investigations revealed the involvement of an Israeli advertising technology company in suspicious activity, suspected of using digital ads to determine the locations of users of the satellite Internet service “Starlink” and track their activities across the network.
According to what was published by the Jerusalem Post newspaper, researchers at Trend AI, a subsidiary of the Japanese Trend Micro group, found that the Israeli company Discover-Tech topped the list of buyers of advertising space directed to Starlink users, as it ranked first in advertising bids related to the service in more than 100 countries.
This technical mechanism relies on automated bidding systems to purchase advertisements within websites and applications, a practice that may allow participating parties to collect accurate data about users, which contributes to determining their geographical locations, revealing their identities, and tracking the path of their digital activity.
A previous security report had monitored this activity on October 15 under the code name “Shadow-Earth-79,” before subsequent investigations led to linking it directly to the company “Discover-Tech.”
The data drew attention to the significant concentration of targeting of Starlink users in areas witnessing armed conflicts or severe communications restrictions, including Syria, Libya, Yemen, South Sudan, and Afghanistan, which reinforced researchers’ doubts about the actual dimensions and goals behind this advertising activity.
Following the publication of these results, major companies, including Google and Comcast, announced the exclusion of Discover-Tech from their advertising platforms, while other parties began conducting internal reviews to verify the possibility of targeting their employees through the same mechanisms.
On the other hand, neither the Israeli company “Discover-Tech” nor the company “SpaceX”, which owns the “Starlink” service, responded to requests for comment, while the data indicated that the published investigations have not yet confirmed whether all the observed advertisements were actually used for the purposes of spying on users.
