yahya

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Most odd attack happened today in Lebanon. There are reports on exploding beepers throughout Lebanon allegedly targeting Hezbollah members.



SM entries claim that the exploding pagers made by Gold Apollo were from the AP-900 series, most likely the AR-924.


There is speculation that the battery charger boards inside the pagers were hacked causing the lithium battery severe overheating, which led to explosions.

photo_2024-09-17_18-49-57.jpg photo_2024-09-17_18-50-50.jpg photo_2024-09-17_18-50-07.jpg
AR924_pic-1.png


So far the "attack" claimed over 2800 wounded and 9 dead according to SM.

Iranian ambassador to Lebanon was injured by the detonation of his pager.
 
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Explosive Pager Hack Only for Hezbollah Pagers? Self-Destruct Hack?

"There is now an explanation is that these were pagers only and this was a specific model for
Hezbollah with integrated self-destruct mode. The devices were made to be explosively
destroyed if they were captured. The theory is the hack triggered the explosive self-destruct."

See:

 
Well, an electronically triggered wipe would be sufficient to erase the memory and software on a compromised device rather than referring to a self-destruct "charge". (Remember WW II vintage transponders with self-destruct buttons and all the problems they brought.) Today's event rather resembles the 1996 assassination of Yahya Ayyash using a mobile phone fitted then with 15 grams of RDX, but with much more victims.

I believe that the AR-924 battery charger boards must have been somehow hacked and this triggered the explosions upon reception of a triggering signal in the UHF band. Note the manufacturer's website claims these pagers operated between 450 and 470 MHz and were using the POCSAG protocol. I wonder if the attack was executed through hacking the Lebanese operator's infrastructure and the associated UHF transmitters, or the attacker's own UHF transmitter(s) was/were used to remotely overheat the internal lithium batteries causing explosions. Was there any ELINT plane flying in vicinity today?

Bottom line. Doubtful the manufacturer could have agreed to the physical self destruction mode since today's incident already badly influenced his reputation. Perhaps an oversight in the design of the software allowed such a remotely triggered attack unless Hezbollah already altered the software without manufacturer's knowledge and consent, and the 'new feature' was simply exploited by the adversary.
 
Impressive! Truly impressive! By one masterful stroke, Israel (let's not play games here, shall we?):

1) Disabled more than 1500 of his main Lebanese opponents, presumably including a significant part of upper ranks

2) Totally disrupted their command-communication-control capabilities

3) Shocked and demoralized the whole organization, most likely making them wonder "what would explode NEXT?!"

Its brilliant!
 
Not your average stand-off, precision guided munition, but certainly ticks all 3 boxes.


Warning, graphic.
View: https://x.com/timourazhari/status/1836036228547825885

View: https://x.com/BilboBagginsBut/status/1836115920260923616
 
Guys, isn't that the explosives, even in small quantities can be detected using X-ray machines? Would Hezbollah X-ray now all the electronics they have to avoid their past mistake?



 
Just wait for exploding carrier pigions...

Well done, Mossad! On one hand, I believe there must have been some explosive material in these pagers, but on the other hand I think this would have caused an alarm long time before in a security check. If thousands of these devices are spread amon the Hesbolla members, someone would very likely used a plane or something else with high security checks.
 
Just wait for exploding carrier pigions...

Well done, Mossad! On one hand, I believe there must have been some explosive material in these pagers, but on the other hand I think this would have caused an alarm long time before in a security check. If thousands of these devices are spread amon the Hesbolla members, someone would very likely used a plane or something else with high security checks.

There are reports circulating on SM that these new AR-924 pagers were fielded only recently. Perhaps the internal explosives could not have flashed yet at Beirut Khalde or other points of entry in Lebanon.
 
Wait - did they made the batteries overheat and explode OR did they activate the Hezbollah self-destruct systems inside their pagers ? Second case would be of utter irony.
Hezbollah member "my pagers will self destruct if captured by an Israeli"
Israel - "hold my beer" (makes hezbollah member self destruct via the pager explosives.)
 
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Now, there are three versions:

(1) miniature explosives planted via the supply chain attack -- most likely;
(2) battery overheating and explode -- semi likely unless there were cases in Lebanon and Syria today where the battery ignited but did not explode;
(3) self-destruct mode by Hezbollah -- utterly stupid and most likely intentional disinformation by one side of the conflict.
 
There are reports on SM that PETN was planted behind the batteries on the pagers. When the batteries overheated, the explosives ignited at ca. 190 deg. C.
 





At least 200 critically injured, so it is likely that there are already far more fatalities than the nine already admitted to.
 
This sounds like something right out of Mossad's playbook.

On another note the team from Mission Impossible would be impressed;):D.
 
An interesting quotation from the AR-924 website at https://www.gapollo.com.tw/product/ar-924/

Maintenance Provisions

  • Separated main board and charger board
  • Replaceable battery (spring contacts)
  • Replaceable vibration motor (spring contacts)
  • Replaceable display with connector
  • Replaceable silicone seal
  • Manual self-test

If the battery, among other parts, was replaceable, then the pagers themselves did not necessarily have to be hard-wired by the attacker. Replacing the battery with the PETN add-on could have been made as well within the organization. A software hack would do the rest.
 
"Bastard Operator From Hell"

Near-mythical IT senior operative with, literally, the keys to your kingdom. Plus a nasty habit of defenestrating contrary upper management. Though lesser minions etc are not immune...,
 
If a small explosive was indeed planted inside each of ca. 2800 pagers, that would mean a huge "supply chain attack."

It's my understanding that the Israeli .gov impounded a lot of pagers before releasing them to Lebanon. (Pagers arrived at a port in Israel because Lebanese ports are a mess)



Guys, isn't that the explosives, even in small quantities can be detected using X-ray machines? Would Hezbollah X-ray now all the electronics they have to avoid their past mistake?
You'd think they would have done this now, especially if the Israeli .gov had access to those pagers for any length of time.
 
This is like the electronic equivalent of the tylenol poisoning case or some other mass product tampering,and just as with that event its very likely we will see this repeated somewhere else at some point in the near future.
One could easily imagine the initial chaos resulting even from relatively small numbers of some well known brand of smart phone or laptop being booby trapped in this same sort of way,plus the longer term economic fallout for whichever unfortunate company [or companies] had its products targeted.
The potential is quite terrifying,for instance how big a bang would you get if you pulled this same sort of trick with an EV battery?
 

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