The company explained, during its annual “Cyber Security Weekend” conference for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa, that the custom advertising infrastructure may provide sophisticated attackers with a means to collect accurate information about potential victims, by taking advantage of the data circulating within the digital advertising system.
Kaspersky pointed out that advertising technologies depend on data such as user interests, browsing habits, device information, and approximate geographic location, and although they are used for commercial purposes, they may turn into a source of intelligence information that advanced threat groups benefit from. Advertising platforms and instant bidding systems can also be exploited to target specific individuals, and even carry out “no-click” attacks, as opening a legitimate application that displays ads may be sufficient to start the targeting process.
The company revealed that during the first half of 2026, it blocked more than 3.7 million attempts to redirect users to malicious content in Middle Eastern countries, including more than 1.6 million attempts in the Arab Gulf countries.
To reduce these risks, Kaspersky recommended that users install reliable security solutions and constantly update devices and applications, while calling on organizations to adopt a multi-layered security strategy that includes threat detection and response solutions, taking advantage of threat intelligence information, in addition to reviewing application permissions and using ad blocking tools to reduce the risks of monitoring and targeted attacks.
