The explosion of the pagers of Hezbollah in Lebanon marks a dramatic peak in modern cyber warfare. The attack, which led to many injuries among the organization’s personnel, reveals Hezbollah’s dependence on outdated technologies such as the pager. Has the use of old technology become a deadly trap? All the details about the sophisticated move carried out remotely.
The incident of the exploding pagers of Hezbollah members last in Lebanon, perhaps the most dramatic event in the field of cyber warfare in recent years, once again brings to the headlines the capabilities of remote cyber warfare, and the use of old communication devices for operational purposes in the modern technological age. So what exactly is a pager, why did Hezbollah choose to use the outdated device, and how can the device be detonated remotely?
As mentioned, the event that took place included a series of coordinated explosions that caused widespread damage among thousands of Hezbollah members, who were injured to varying degrees. The common denominator for all of them is the pager that they had in their possession, which was used for them for internal communication within the terrorist organization.
The pager is a wireless communication device that was widely used in the 80’s and 90’s, and made it possible to receive short text messages via radio signals. It was common among professionals such as doctors and emergency forces thanks to its reliability and the possibility of fast and simple communication.
In recent years, Hezbollah has returned to using pagers as part of a strategy to avoid advanced Israeli surveillance of its operatives. The organization realized that cell phones had become particularly vulnerable to surveillance and hacking by Israel, so it preferred to return to outdated communication technologies, such as pagers and private landline telephone networks.
The successful attack carried out using the pagers raises several hypotheses about how it was carried out. One is that explosives were embedded in the devices during their supply chain and then activated remotely by radio signal. Another possibility is that the devices were hacked at the technological level, using control of the battery circuits to cause overheating that led to the explosion.
The operation indicates a very high level of sophistication, where advanced cyber technologies are combined with in-depth knowledge of electronics, and shows how Israel, apparently, was able to take advantage of Hezbollah’s dependence on old technologies and harm its people on a large scale.
