How Pagers Became IEDs: A Security Breach for Hezbollah
How Pagers Became IEDs: A Security Breach for Hezbollah
This tragic and violent incident marks a significant breach in both physical and digital communication security for the Hezbollah terrorist organization.
The attack underscores vulnerabilities that need to be addressed in modern security practices, particularly when it comes to outdated technology. Although the investigation is ongoing and we do not yet know who orchestrated the attack, the implications are serious.
When I first heard about the incident, with pagers being used as explosives, I couldn't believe it: "Pagers? Are people still using those?" It felt like a flashback to the 1990s. But this situation is anything but lighthearted—it’s a tragic example of how even outdated technology can be weaponized in unexpected ways.
As a security professional, my immediate reaction was to consider how pagers could be turned into wearable IEDs. While unsettling, this type of adversarial thinking is essential for those in the security field. To defend against evolving threats, we need to think like attackers.
Weaponizing communication devices isn't a new tactic. Terrorists have long used mobile phones to detonate explosives, while law enforcement agencies have worked on ways to reverse this dynamic by turning triggering devices into weapons to neutralize attackers. This reversal of tactics has been studied for years, with ideas such as those discussed in Chris Domas' 2013 TED talk, “The 1s and 0s Behind Cyber Warfare”.
After the pager explosions, I dug into the model of the device involved. It appears to be an old Motorola Scripter LX or a similar style of pager. While the technology is outdated, these pagers are still in use in certain parts of the world, often by organizations like Hezbollah seeking to avoid more traceable devices like smartphones. Pagers operate on unencrypted, unidirectional signals and only alert the user when a message matches their unique identifier, making them susceptible to manipulation. Here is a 2009 Adafruit Video breaking it down for us.
One significant change from the 90s to now, is that modern pagers use lithium-ion batteries, which are more powerful but also more unstable than the alkaline batteries used decades ago. These batteries are sensitive to pressure, heat, and improper charging—conditions that can lead to overheating or even explosions, as seen in similar incidents involving other devices, like the infamous Samsung Galaxy pager explosion story in 2016.
Considering the available information, there are three plausible attack and deployment scenarios:
1. Supply Chain Interference: Attackers could have compromised the supply chain, modifying the pagers’ firmware or hardware before distributing them to Hezbollah. The devices could then be triggered remotely via a specific broadcast message.
2. Remote Activation Exploit: The pagers might have been exploited via a hardware vulnerability, allowing attackers to send a secret broadcast that caused the devices to malfunction and explode.
3. Broadcast Overload: Attackers could have flooded the pagers with a surge of broadcast messages, overwhelming the device and causing it to overheat, triggering an explosion in the lithium-ion battery. A scenario that would never be possible until the new rechargeable batteries were introduced and widely used in the early 2000s. Where devices were modified to include a charging cradle.
Given the nature of the incident, the second and third scenarios seem more plausible than a supply chain attack. Supply chain interference requires significant planning and coordination, and it would likely introduce delays or raise suspicions. It also seems unlikely in a situation like this, where the attackers executed a widespread strike quickly. The wide-scale nature of the attack suggests this wasn’t a highly targeted operation, which is often the case with supply chain attacks.
The second and third options, however, could easily exploit vulnerabilities in the devices' firmware or hardware. The third scenario, in particular, seems highly likely—overloading the pagers with excessive broadcasts could cause the lithium-ion batteries to overheat and explode. Hackers often use techniques like fuzzing or signal bursts to target weaknesses in systems, and this approach would have required minimal preparation.
Both the second and third options rely on exploiting the pager's physical battery as the explosive element, meaning the extent of the damage would be limited by the battery's size. However, since pagers are typically worn close to the body, even a small battery can cause significant harm, especially when multiple devices malfunction simultaneously.
This tragic incident, which resulted in injuries and loss of life, highlights the importance of thoroughly vetting third-party devices and keeping a close eye on the supply chain. Any device obtained from an external source should be carefully examined for vulnerabilities, particularly in high-risk environments.
Ironically, Hezbollah may have chosen to use outdated pagers to avoid being tracked through modern cell phones, but this decision may have inadvertently turned their own devices into weapons. While the intended targets were Hezbollah personnel, first responders and medical personnel, who are among the few still using pagers globally, were also impacted. This appears to be a calculated act of war, executed with precision.
Ultimately, this incident shows that Hezbollah could have adopted more secure and safer communication methods that wouldn’t have put innocent people at risk. In a world where communication technology has advanced significantly, there are numerous alternatives that offer greater security without compromising safety.
Stay cool! Stay Secure!
Update Oct 04, 2024 - Independent Report: Handala’s Allegations on the Pager IED Incident (September 17-18, 2024)
A hacking group known as Handala recently released a statement on September 18, 2024, claiming that the pager IED operation in Lebanon was part of a coordinated supply chain attack allegedly orchestrated by Israeli intelligence agencies. According to the group, the Mossad and Unit 8200, in collaboration with companies like Israeli Industrial Batteries (IIB) and Vidisco, contaminated pager batteries with heat-sensitive explosives during production.
Handala accuses IIB of introducing the explosive substances into the batteries and claims that Mossad facilitated their transport across borders. Vidisco, a company that manufactures X-ray inspection systems and is allegedly linked to Unit 8200, is said to have played a crucial role in this operation. Handala claims Vidisco’s X-ray machines, which are used in 84% of airports worldwide, contain backdoors that allow Israeli intelligence to bypass detection systems, enabling contraband such as the contaminated batteries to move undetected through security checkpoints.
The group further claims to have hacked Vidisco and IIB, obtaining 14 terabytes of sensitive data from both companies, including source codes, emails, financial records, and operational details. Handala alleges that this data will reveal deeper Israeli involvement in the supply chain breach that led to the use of contaminated pager batteries as Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in Lebanon.
Additionally, on September 19, 2024, Handala released another statement claiming that they had successfully hacked Vidisco. They now claim possession of 8 terabytes of top-secret information from the company, which they plan to leak. This data allegedly contains details about Vidisco's clients, agents, software backdoors, and sensitive communications, further implicating the company’s role in facilitating Mossad’s global operations.
Handala has threatened to release more information in the coming hours, including Vidisco’s full source code for their X-ray systems, which could lead to significant international scrutiny over the use of these technologies in global security operations.
Note: The information reported here is based on claims made by the Handala hacking group and has not been independently verified.
