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Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

reuters.com

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Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#51

Post by bluescrn »

itissid wrote: post #43

How is this possible? Are they overclocking the MPUs and just heating the batteries to the point of explosion?

These appear to be actual explosions, not battery combustion (there's footage on Twitter of at least one of them going off, it's a detonation rather than intense burning)

Definitely some non-standard internals in those devices...

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#52

Post by lsllc »

scandox wrote: post #45
itissid wrote: post #43

How is this possible? Are they overclocking the MPUs and just heating the batteries to the point of explosion?

Surely just supply chain infiltration and regular explosives no?

Wouldn't this be too easy to detect -- for example tripping airport security (or other X-ray security systems, govt. buildings etc).

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#55

Post by jakeinspace »

mandmandam wrote: post #4
yamrzou wrote: post #3

Why was this flagged? I vouched for it as it would make for an interesting discussion about the security of these devices and how this kind of cyberattack might have happened. Are smartphones, for example, also vulnerable to it?

> Why was this flagged? Anything any particularly motivated group dislikes here gets flagged; always been this way. Thanks for vouching. > Are smartphones, for example, also vulnerable to it? I also would love an answer to this question. Up until 12 minutes ago, I would never have thought _blowing up_ hundreds of pagers simultaneously was a realistic scenario. If anyone can make sense of how this actually worked I'd…

98% sure these were booby trapped with plastic explosives or similar, meaning it’s a supply chain attack more than a cyber attack. LiPos exploding would be more sizzle and less instant boom, you can’t just hack your way through thermal runaway without all the smoke and building temperature first.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#56

Post by ajsnigrutin »

This is going to be an interesting one... definitely someone (not a lot of guessing who) modified the pagers somewhere in the supply chain...

As with exploding drones, this will become a thing in other countries too, either as a part of organized crime or general terrorism.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#57

Post by bell-cot »

beardyw wrote: post #16
bell-cot wrote: post #11

Obvious #1 Question - did Mossad manage to feed Hezbollah a huge number of weaponized pagers - or are there pagers which could be rooted in such a way that the stock hardware can "detonate"?

For standard pager I can only imagine perhaps some way to short the battery, but that sounds unlikely even as I write it.

Yep. Though maybe with really-low-quality (safety-wise) batteries, and the description "detonate" being 99.9% journalistic hype...maybe?

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#58

Post by c0rn3l1us »

It's just a matter of knowing your battery's power management firmware. You can overload the power control circuits that pagers or smartphones by creating a massive surge (sending signals to the IGBT drivers) that will cause the battery to explode. If the battery is moderately charged, the explosion is devastating. Hacker teams from the notorious Israeli ShinBet know of many bugs of this type.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#59

Post by mminer237 »

gee_totes wrote: post #49

Maybe a dumb question, but I wonder if this was a software attack or IL was able to modify the physical pagers that are issued during Hezbollah onboarding. If this was a pure software attack, are only pagers susceptible? Or are we unknowingly carrying around bombs in our pocket, waiting for the counterattack?

They 100% had a explosive added inside. Batteries cannot explode like that.

Re: Hezbollah pager explosions kill several people in Lebanon

#60

Post by bluescrn »

Circlecrypto2 wrote: post #42

I'd love a technical write up on how this is possible. Is it RF based or the battery being exploited?

"Intelligence agency intercepts batch of pagers and swaps out the internals" seems the most likely.

If the footage on Twitter is legit, there was something more explosive than a battery inside those pagers.

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