The coordinated detonation of thousands of pagers and radios used by Hezbollah members in Lebanon and Syria earlier this week marked the beginning of a new era of covert warfare.
The shockingly coordinated and devastatingly effective attack, widely seen as the work of Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad, injured thousands of militants, not to mention scores of civilians.
Lebanese authorities on Thursday banned radios and beepers from flights leaving Beirut airport as Hezbollah, still reeling from the devastating explosions, scrambles to re-establish a secure command and communications network.
However, the disturbing incident has also raised concerns about whether such tactics could also be applied to the technology that millions of people use every day, such as our beloved smartphones, tablets and smartwatches.
A man bleeds after his pager explodes in Beirut, Lebanon
Pagers that Hezbollah members use for vital communications exploded Tuesday, wounding thousands. Also exploding on Wednesday were radios and walkie-talkies, like the one pictured in the hand of the man standing above the victim.
A photo taken in the southern suburbs of Beirut on September 18, 2024, shows the remains of exploded beepers on display at an unknown location
In 2011, a tall tale surfaced about Steve Jobs and the team of Apple engineers tasked with creating the first iPod.
The story goes that after months, if not years, of painstaking research, development, and advanced engineering, the team presented their beloved prototype to their CEO. However, Jobs rejected the prototype out of hand because it was too big.
When engineers protested that it was simply impossible to make the device smaller, Jobs walked over to an aquarium and threw the device into the water.
As the air bubbles escaping from the prototype rose to the surface, he barked, “That means there’s room. Make it smaller.”
Apple experts and technology enthusiasts have long debated whether the story is true or fictional.
But it perfectly encapsulates the beginning of a trend that has been going on for decades: the race to make our technology smaller and more streamlined.
Experts suspect that Israeli agents were able to booby trap Hezbollah’s pagers and radios by planting small amounts of explosives in their internal components.
With today’s technology, this vulnerability simply no longer exists.
No space in a modern smartphone, tablet or watch is wasted. Each device is designed with ruthless precision, crammed with hardware and packaged as tightly and efficiently as possible.
Workers and smartphones on the assembly line at OnePlus’ manufacturing facility in Dongguan, China
Workers on the production line at Huawei’s manufacturing campus on April 11, 2019 in Dongguan, near Shenzhen, China
Moreover, most devices today are no longer modular.
Unlike an old-fashioned pager, which consists of replaceable parts with a lot of internal space, you can’t replace the battery in your modern phone by unclipping and sliding out the housing. The device comes as a single unit.
These features mean that a malicious party wanting to plant explosives in a phone that was manufactured only a few years ago would have to have some very impressive technical capabilities.
A saboteur should not only be able to unpack, adjust and repack the device without leaving any traces, but aSuch a modification would likely result in a malfunction, such as noticeably shorter battery life, heat build-up, or a lack of functionality.
Most gadgets undergo rigorous performance and safety testing both during and after the manufacturing process, so any issues are almost certainly discovered before the device reaches the end user.
Dr Lukasz Olejnik, a visiting professor at King’s College’s Department of War Studies, told MailOnline: ‘Most modern smartphones are designed to make such manipulation very difficult, if not impossible.’
Nicholas Reece, a computer scientist at New York University, added: ‘There would have to be enough physical space within the smartphone’s body to accommodate the explosives, which is not the case with any modern smartphone.
‘In addition, the cases are more difficult to open and close without affecting the phone and it cannot be detected.’
Unlike an old pager, which consists of replaceable parts with a lot of internal space, you cannot replace the battery of your modern smartphone by simply unclipping the housing and sliding it out. The device comes as a single unit.
Security guards stand outside a Samsung facility near the city of Chennai, India, September 16, 2024
People work on machines at the Foxconn factory in Guiyang, Guizhou Province, China, which produces technology for Apple and several other IT companies
Much of the speculation surrounding the attack on Hezbollah focuses on how the perpetrators were able to manipulate the devices before they arrived in Lebanon.
The details of the achievement are still highly unclear, but Lebanese security sources believe Israeli spies managed to modify the devices “at production level.”
Analysts and officials say an Israeli-run front company likely oversaw a phase of the production process, ensuring the deadly payloads were introduced undisturbed and undetected before being shipped to Lebanon.
“The Mossad has injected a board into the device with explosive material that receives a code. It is very difficult to detect it in any way. Even with any device or scanner,” a Lebanese security source told Reuters.
The theory is that an Israeli operator sent an error code to the affected devices, causing them to beep or vibrate incessantly.
When the user pressed the button to cancel the alarm, he activated the detonator and the device exploded in his hands.
But disrupting the supply chain of a modern smartphone or tablet is a much more difficult task.
No space in a modern smartphone, tablet or watch is wasted. Each device is designed with ruthless precision, crammed with hardware and packaged as tightly and efficiently as possible.
The remains of a destroyed pager or pager device that exploded on September 17, 2024
Decades of globalization have meant that most of our technology is manufactured thousands of miles away and shipped around the world. Yet the manufacturing process is now extremely efficient.
Modern production lines are not only fast and accurate, they also employ strict security measures to prevent product data from leaking to competitors.
Modern phones, especially the more expensive models like iPhones or the flagship Android models, are also manufactured using automated robotic assembly processes.
An additional layer of protection is created by the large number of devices being produced.
The halcyon devices that were intercepted and modified – likely by the Mossad – were produced as part of a small-scale production by small retailers for a single customer: Hezbollah.
Disrupting that supply chain is not the same as infiltrating a major manufacturer that mass-produces millions of devices each year.
“There will be curiosity (from large manufacturers), but their production and supply chains are completely different from those of small-scale companies, including sellers of counterfeit transceivers,” Dr. Olejnik said.
“There is no reason to believe that they would be affected by this.”
That said, it is highly likely that organizations around the world, from intelligence agencies to terrorists and criminal networks, will assess the attack on Hezbollah with the idea of adding such a tactic to their arsenal.
Philip Ingram, a former senior British military intelligence officer and security expert, said iNews: ‘TThere are real risks of copycat actions here. A large organised crime group could do something like this – small numbers of devices have been compromised in the past in various ways.’
Although pagers and radios have largely become obsolete with the advent of smartphones, there is still a market for these devices, as they are considered more reliable and secure, at least against digital attacks.
These devices run on batteries and radio waves, making them immune to Wi-Fi dead zones, basements without cell service, hacks and catastrophic network failures like those that occurred during the September 11 attacks.
Pagers are preferred by some medical professionals and first responders. They are widely used by workers in remote locations, such as oil rigs and mines.
Busy restaurants use them too, giving customers flashing, hockey-disc-like devices that vibrate when their table is ready.
