Is. Unleashes Indiscriminate Pager Attack in Lebanon.

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over 3000 injuries and 11 fatalities to date.
Lots of images of dancing Is. Settlers.
Live footage all over the place and images.
The official word is Is. routed high voltage to destabilize the Li.Ion batteries but for me the footage and injuries I have seen look closer to that of a frag grenade. No high temperature burns and lots of laceration.
I also don't think the battery in a pager would amount to much.
I do know Li.Ion batteries can be devastating but there are many factors that govern Li.Ion failure. In most cases damaged or faulty. So you would expect very differing injuries.
The other possibility is that they are just using pager as a headline and that all portable electric devices were targeted such as laptops. Still the images of lacerations I find troubling. Burns would be more expected imo.

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The U.S. State Dept says the U.S. was not involved in the pager explosions in Lebanon and was not aware of the incident beforehand.

In unrelated news, the American University of Beirut Medical Center replaced the pagers of their doctors and staff almost 2 weeks ago.

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Actually 85 days seems a very large capacity battery, but it falls well below legal air shipping thresholds.

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Israel PACKED EXPLOSIVES into the pagers at their factory in TAIWAN

Lebanese intelligence said each pager that exploded contained explosives

–––Explosives were planted inside "most probably" at Israel's Taiwan manufacturing plant

It cannot explode with such force without it

Each charge placed in the pagers weighed no more than 20 grams. Hezbollah received the devices five months ago from Taiwan.

Ronen Bergman's book "Rise and Kill First" released in 2018, about Israel's history of contract killings, mentions a case in which a message was placed on the victim's phone: "A fifty-gram charge of explosives with a remotely triggered detonator."

Almost 3,000 people were injured, 300 were seriously wounded, and at least 25 people died.

The US may be directly involved in the explosions of communication devices in Lebanon, according to military expert Omar Maarabuni. In an interview with RT, he noted that pagers operating on the same frequency as the ones that exploded were confiscated from staff at the American University of Beirut ten days ago

Yesterday ...US Air Force EC-130H Compass Call (electronic warfare) aircraft was spotted off the coast of Lebanon. The EC-130H can disrupt enemy command and control communications, conduct offensive counter-information operations, and carry out other types of electronic attacks. The EC-130H is equipped with hardware and software that enables wireless hacking and more.

Former US intelligence officer Edward Snowden believes that pager detonation in different parts of Lebanon is associated with the operation of built-in explosive devices, and not a hacker attack.

"If these were explosions from overheated batteries, we would expect more small fires and failures," stating that Israel could be behind the detonation and accused it of recklessness in the methods used.

Expert Igor Bederov on possible reasons for pager explosions:

"The version about the explosion of pagers by means of a hacker attack by the Israeli special services really does exist. I imagine the following scenario: first, the attackers disabled or blocked the controller, which is responsible for the emergency shutdown of the battery in case of overheating, and then initiated a high load on the processor. The high load on the processor gives a high load on the battery, the battery overheats, and an explosion occurs," said Bederov

Bederov went on to say that he doubted that the explosion of a pager would be enough to cause traumatic amputation of fingers and hands, much less to cause injury to others around the victim, as reported by the media.

Most cybersecurity experts agreed that a "clean" cyberattack was highly unlikely. Many have wondered, "Is it possible that Israeli security services have found a way to hack pagers and explode lithium-ion batteries?" such as Bugcrowd CSO Casey Ellis.

"I'm betting on explosives," said John Hultquist, an Army veteran and principal analyst at Google-owned Mandiant Intelligence on X.

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Arab intelligence uncovered that Mossad rigged pager batteries with explosives.
Each battery had about 20 grams of PETN, a military-grade explosive that looked like normal lithium salts used in batteries, making it easy to slip past inspections.
Israeli agents triggered the explosions by making the pagers overheat.
These sabotaged batteries were hidden in a shipment of pagers sent to Lebanon from Taiwan. Taiwan is allied with the US, and the US is a close friend of Israel.

Connect the dots.....
https://x.com/ricwe123/status/1836188373276578291

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Lebanon's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants condemned the "Israeli cyberattack, which led to the explosion of numerous communication devices (pagers) in several Lebanese regions," resulting in the martyrdom of nine people, including a child, and hundreds of injuries, many of which are critical.

In a statement, the Ministry denounced "this dangerous and deliberate Israeli escalation is accompanied by Israeli threats to expand the scope of the war on Lebanon, along with hardened Israeli positions calling for more bloodshed, destruction, and devastation."

The Ministry affirmed that "after consulting with the Cabinet, it is preparing to file a complaint at the UN Security Council as soon as all relevant information about the attack is gathered."
https://x.com/MayadeenEnglish/status/18 ... 2857852139

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Remotely Exploding Pagers
Wow.

It seems they all exploded simultaneously, which means they were triggered.

Were they each tampered with physically, or did someone figure out how to trigger a thermal runaway remotely? Supply chain attack? Malicious code update, or natural vulnerability?

I have no idea, but I expect we will all learn over the next few days.

EDITED TO ADD: I’m reading nine killed and 2,800 injured. That’s a lot of collateral damage. (I haven’t seen a good number as to the number of pagers yet.)

EDITED TO ADD: Reuters writes: “The pagers that detonated were the latest model brought in by Hezbollah in recent months, three security sources said.” That implies supply chain attack. And it seems to be a large detonation for an overloaded battery.

This reminds me of the 1996 assassination of Yahya Ayyash using a booby trapped cellphone.

EDITED TO ADD: I am deleting political comments. On this blog, let’s stick to the tech and the security ramifications of the threat.

Tags: bombs, Hezbollah, terrorism

Posted on September 17, 2024 at 11:54 AM • 33 Comments https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/ ... agers.html

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@Leila1H
·
1h
NOW THIS IS A GAME CHANGER

Gold Apollo founder tells Reuters: Devices that exploded in Lebanon were made by a company in Europe that has the right to use the Taiwanese company's trademark

*EDIT

Just in.
AP reported that The AR-924 pagers used by the militants were manufactured by BAC Consulting KFT, based in Hungary’s capital, according to a statement released Wednesday by Gold Apollo.

CEO of BACConsulting. Seems a bit of spin to me although now the company website [https://www.bacconsulting.org/] is being blocked or having issues. https://independent.academia.edu/Cristi ... rcidiacono
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cr ... no-Barsony

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ISRAEL COORDINATES WITH WASHINGTON MINUTES BEFORE EXPLOSION IN LEBANON: Hebrew reports reveal Gallant's call to Lloyd Austin just before detonation. US sources claim Hezbollah is confused and won't respond immediately. Iranian Embassy denies rumors about Ambassador Amani's health.

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The pagers were sold to Hezbollah by a Bulgarian company, the Hungarian company was only used on paper

It was a company based in Sofia, Bulgaria, that bought the pagers which were eventually sold to Hezbollah from Taiwan, and the Hungarian company involved in the case did not actually do anything, the devices were never in Hungary, Telex has learned from sources familiar with the case. This latter information has since been officially confirmed by the Hungarian government as well. "The Hungarian authorities have established that the company in question is an intermediary company, that it has no manufacturing or production facilities in Hungary, it only has one manager at the address reported, and that the devices in question have never been in Hungary. The case does not pose a national security risk for Hungary" Zoltán Kovács, State Secretary for International Communications, announced on Wednesday afternoon.

Hundreds of Hezbollah militants were seriously injured in a series of mysterious explosions in Lebanon on Tuesday, when bombs hidden in pagers detonated. These are devices which have been replaced by mobile phones in most parts of the world long ago, but are still used in many places, such as hospitals. Members of Hezbollah also used them instead of telephones...

https://telex.hu/english/2024/09/18/the ... d-on-paper

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“How do you think Hezbollah operatives feeling right now about using their toaster, refrigerator or coffee maker?”

— Senator Tom Cotton

https://x.com/i/status/1836663075698614282