In a sudden and unexpected event in terms of the nature of the escalation between the Israeli occupation army andHezbollahHundreds of party members were seriously injured yesterday, Tuesday, after the explosion of the wireless communication devices (pagers) they were using.
The numbers of infections quickly began to emerge, with security sources telling Reuters that thousands of people had been infected in Lebanon and 9 had been killed as of this writing. The Iranian Mehr News Agency announced that the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, had been infected as a result of an Israeli cyber attack.
The information received so far is that these communication devices are the latest model that Hezbollah has brought in the past few months, and a private security source supported this story for Al Jazeera by saying that Hezbollah received a shipment of these devices 5 months ago, and this information is consistent with what the Wall Street Journal reported earlier today about the new shipment that Hezbollah received.
This particular piece of information is noteworthy because it points to another possibility that differs from the cyber-hacking analyses: that it was an intelligence breach.
Although Israel has not officially adopted the operation yet, putting things in context, especially with the statements of the leaders of the occupation army about the necessity of escalation in northern Israel to return the residents there after their evacuation, all of this data indicates Israel’s involvement in this operation, noting that Hezbollah has officially pointed the finger of accusation at Israel for its involvement in this explosion.
Here a technical question arises about the possibility of pagers exploding through a cyber breach, causing such severe damage, and what if there was a breach but it was intelligence-based and not cyber-based? To answer these questions, let us start by learning about the nature of this device.
What are the capabilities of pagers?
A pager is a small wireless device that receives messages. These devices were widely used in the 1980s before the spread of mobile phones, especially in the areas of health care, emergency services, and business people.
These devices receive messages, but cannot send replies. The most common type receives text messages or a phone number, prompting the recipient to call back. There are newer models of these devices that can send and receive messages.
Pagers are important to Hezbollah for several key reasons: they are simple to install, have excellent range, and are not connected to the internet. They rely on radio frequencies, which can travel long distances and penetrate buildings more effectively than cellular signals.
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Pagers can cover entire cities, regions or even countries, and they work well in remote areas, mountainous areas or underground bunkers, and in difficult weather conditions, making them ideal for military uses.
Pagers also use simple, low-power radio signals that are less likely to be detected or intercepted than cell phone signals, which transmit data continuously and can be tracked. This makes pagers a covert communication tool in areas where stealth is of paramount importance. Additionally, pagers do not send signals to the network they are on, making them less likely to be detected.
Most importantly, they do not connect to the Internet, and have very limited functionality compared to modern smartphones, which reduces the risk of hacking, cyber attacks or surveillance, making them a safer option in environments where cyber espionage is a concern.
Could they be booby-trapped devices?
Given the nature of the reported injuries, which were caused by a relatively large explosion compared to the small size of the pager battery, it is likely that the devices were rigged to explode before they left the supplier.
With information emerging about Hezbollah receiving a shipment of these devices recently, this possibility is the most likely according to experts. As for how it is done, the battery is equipped with the potential to explode, either by modifying it technically or adding explosive materials to it, and only the hacker or whoever has the code for these devices can activate them, as happens with bombs or explosive devices that are activated remotely and explode, or perhaps they are designed to explode at a specific time without being hacked.
A security source told Al Jazeera that the weight of the explosive device that was detonated did not exceed 20 grams of explosive material, while indicating that the communication devices that exploded were previously booby-trapped.
In fact, the Telegraph website quoted a cybersecurity expert as saying that what happened in Lebanon was likely not a cyberattack, amid the mystery that still surrounds how the explosions that targeted communication devices carried by Hezbollah members were carried out.
Edward Snowden, the fugitive US cybersecurity expert who previously worked for the CIA, commented on the incident on the X website, saying that the cause was planted explosives, not a hacking operation. Snowden explains his conclusion because the successive infections are very serious and very consistent, more than the capabilities of cyber hacking.
https://x.com/Snowden/status/1836063129492390353
In other words, Snowden asserts that if the problem is batteries that have burned out due to a hack, then a larger number of small, failed explosions would be expected, so that statistically it could be described as a cyber-hack of a large number of devices, hoping – in the most fortunate case – that a group of them would explode, but that did not happen. Rather, the strikes were strong and widespread, which means greater accuracy, an accuracy that Snowden says cannot be achieved by hacking, but by booby-trapping.
David Kennedy, a former National Security Agency intelligence analyst, told CNN that the explosions seen in the videos shared online appeared to be “too large to be a direct, remote hack that would overload the pager and cause the lithium battery to explode.” He added that he found the second theory more plausible, that the operation was primarily an intelligence operation, with the devices being tampered with at the manufacturing and then delivery stage.
What about the chances of hacking?
Despite all these specifications, pagers have several vulnerabilities. They usually use unencrypted radio signals to receive messages, and often operate using a broadcast system, which means that many of these types of devices operate on a single radio wave from a single tower or transmitter. If one is hacked, they are all hacked by extension.
In this case, the hacker can forge messages, such as sending fake alerts or commands, which can cause confusion or damage, or he can send a flood of messages to the pager, overwhelming it and causing it to crash or fail to receive important messages. In addition, the pager’s memory can be overloaded by sending excessive or garbled messages, which can cause it to crash, or even burn out.
Therefore, the possibility of hacking remains, and although pagers are, in terms of construction, too simple to be triggered by hacking, it is still theoretically possible.
Pagers consist of a receiver, a small display, and basic signal processing circuits, meaning they lack the hardware components that could actually cause them to explode.
Standard pagers do not contain lithium-ion batteries, and even when lithium-ion batteries are used in newer pagers, they come with built-in safety features, such as thermal protection circuits that make it harder for a hack to turn into an explosion, and they are small in size.
It is not impossible after all, under very specific circumstances a hacker could cause the battery to overheat or be damaged, which could lead to thermal runaway, which could result in a fire or explosion.
Thermal runaway occurs when an increase in the temperature of a physical system causes a change in the state of that system, a change that leads to a new increase in temperature, which in turn leads to a new change in the state of the system, and so on until the matter ends with a destructive result.
Lithium-ion batteries can overheat if they are charged too quickly, beyond their capacity, or by tampering with the device’s system. A hacker can tamper with the charging system to disable security features, which results in faster charging. They can interfere with the communication between the charger and the phone, sending false signals that trick the charger into delivering more power than necessary. This can cause the battery to overheat quickly, which can lead to thermal runaway.
Ultimately, experts estimate, based on the information received, that the matter is closer to an intelligence breach than a cyber breach. In both cases, it is a clear and dangerous escalation, and a transfer of the conflict to levels different from what preceded it, given its outcome and extensive damage.
As for Hezbollah’s response, and other than the statement issued by the party in which it referred to “just retribution,” the world is waiting to see where the current round of escalation will go, and whether it will be contained like its predecessors, or whether it will lead to igniting a wider war.
