MEDIUMVulnerability
Global

Citizen Lab: Law Enforcement Used Webloc to Track 500 Million Devices via Ad Data

·Source: The Hacker News

Updated:

Executive Summary

Hungarian domestic intelligence, the national police in El Salvador, and several U.S. law enforcement and police departments have been attributed to the use of an advertising-based global geolocation surveillance system called Webloc. The tool was developed by Israeli company Cobwebs Technologies and is now sold by its successor Penlink after the two firms merged in July 2023

Analysis

Hungarian domestic intelligence, the national police in El Salvador, and several U.S. law enforcement and police departments have been attributed to the use of an advertising-based global geolocation surveillance system called Webloc. The tool was developed by Israeli company Cobwebs Technologies and is now sold by its successor Penlink after the two firms merged in July 2023
Source Attribution

Originally published by The Hacker News on Apr 11, 2026.

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