Remote attack on pagers used by Hezbollah caused 9 deaths and thousands of injuries

Remote attack on pagers used by Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria caused their explosion; at least 8 nine people dead and more than 2,800 injured.

At least nine eight individuals, including a child, were killed and over 2,800 were injured due to the explosion of their pagers across Lebanon. A Hezbollah official told Reuters that this incident is the “biggest security breach” in nearly a year of conflict with Israel.

The detonations occurred simultaneously across the country, and experts have proposed several hypotheses about the attack.

Threat actors targeted the pagers because they are used by Hezbollah fighters to communicate in an attempt to avoid being tracked and localized by Israeli intelligence.

According to the Reuters, one of the fighters killed was the son of a Hezbollah parliament member, and Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, sustained a minor injury from the pager explosions. The detonated pagers were the latest models recently introduced by Hezbollah, according to security sources.

The pagers that exploded were the latest models brought by Hezbollah in recent months, the experts identified three different models targeted in the attack.

— Faytuks News (@Faytuks) September 17, 2024

The cause of the pager explosions in Lebanon is still unclear, multiple experts believe that this is a case of a supply chain attack.

Looking at the footage of the explosion, we can notice that there is no smoke or fire usually associated with the explosion of a lithium battery.

Threat actors were likely able to intercept the supply and tamper the hardware to cause the explosion on command. CNN reports that the pagers were possibly modified before shipping, indicating a coordinated attack. Experts like Justin Cappos emphasized that normal devices with lithium-ion batteries are not at risk. However, these specific pagers seem intentionally designed to explode. The news is still developing, and authorities have yet to confirm the cause.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Lebanon)