On September 17, 2024, electronic pagers exploded concurrently throughout Lebanon. 12 dead and over 2,700 injured. The next day one other wave of explosions within the country got here from exploding walkie-talkies. The attacks were apparently aimed toward members of the militant Hezbollah.
The Pager Attack with explosives Israeli agents were infiltrated into the communications equipment, in accordance with US officials cited by the New York Times. The report said Hezbollah had recently ordered a shipment of pagers.
Covert supply chain attacks aren’t a brand new technique in intelligence and military operations. For example, the US National Security Agency intercepted computer hardware intended for patrons abroadInject malware or other surveillance tools after which repackage them for delivery to specific foreign buyers, in accordance with an internal NSA document from 2010. This is different from accessing a particular person’s device, reminiscent of when Israel’s Shin Bet secretly planted explosives in a cellphone to kill from a distance a Hamas bomb maker in 1996.
Hezbollah, a long-time enemy of Israel, had increased its use of pagers following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. By switching to relatively easy communication devices reminiscent of pagers and walkie-talkies, Hezbollah has apparently sought a bonus against Israel's well-known sophistication in tracking targets via mobile phones.
AP Photo
Mobile phones: The ultimate tracker
As a former cybersecurity expert and current Security researcherI consider cell phones to be the final word tracking tool for each government and business entities – along with the users, criminals and the mobile operator itself. As a result, cellphone tracking has helped Fight against terrorism, missing individuals found And helped solve crimes.
Conversely, cellphone tracking makes it easy for anyone to record an individual's most intimate movements. This may be done for legitimate purposes, reminiscent of parents tracking their children's movements, helping them find their automotive in a car parking zone, or for business promoting, or for nefarious purposes, reminiscent of remotely spying on a lover suspected of cheating or tracking political activists and journalists. Even the US military stays concerned with the chance that his soldiers may be tracked via their phones.
Mobile device tracking occurs in several ways. First, there may be the Network location data generated by the phone when it passes local cell towers or Stingray devicesutilized by law enforcement agencies to mimic cell towers. Then there are the features which are built into the phone’s operating system or through downloaded apps This may end up in extremely detailed user tracking, which users unknowingly conform to by ignoring the software's privacy policy or terms of service.
This collected data is typically sold to governments or other corporations for extra data mining and user profiling. Modern smartphones even have integrated Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS capabilities that may locate and track user movements worldwide, each from the bottom and via satellite.
Mobile devices may be tracked in real-time or near real-time. Common technical methods include traditional Radio direction finding Techniques that include the usage of reconnaissance satellites or drones, the usage of “man-in-the-middle” tools reminiscent of Stingrays to Imitating cellphone towers to intercept and isolate device traffic or install malware, reminiscent of Pegasus, manufactured by Israeli cyber weapons company NSO to report the situation of a tool.
Non-technical and slower techniques of user tracking include the potential identification of general user locations based on their Internet activityThis may be done through website logs or the metadata of content posted on social media, or through contracts with data brokers to receive any location data collected by apps a user installs on their device.
Because of those weaknesses, the leader of Hezbollah advised his members earlier this yr to Avoid using mobile phones of their activities, noting that Israel's “surveillance devices are in your pockets. If you are looking for the Israeli agent, look at the phone in your hands and those of your wives and children.”
Researchers have shown how these features, often designed for the user’s convenience, may be utilized by governments, corporations and criminals to trace people of their every day lives and even Predicting movements. Many individuals are still not aware how much their mobile devices reveal about them.
However, unlike cell phones, locating pagers may be harder depending on whether or not they support two-way communication or not.
Why switch to low-tech?
A pager that only receives messages doesn’t transmit a signal that would make it easier to locate its owner. Therefore, Hezbollah's use of pagers likely made it harder to locate its operatives – which motivated Israeli intelligence's alleged attack on the Hezbollah pager supply chain.
The use of low-tech tactics and private couriers, in addition to the shortage of mobile phones and digital tools, made it difficult for the technologically superior Western intelligence services to locate Osama bin Laden even years after the September 11 attacks.
In general, I imagine that the opponent in a asymmetric conflict With easy techniques, tactics and technologies it is nearly at all times possible to successfully counter a stronger and better-equipped opponent.
A well-documented proof of this asymmetry in practice was the Millennium Challenge war game in 2002. Among other things, the insurgent Red Forces, led by Marine General Paul van Riper, used low-tech tactics reminiscent of motorcycle couriers as a substitute of cell phones to evade the Blue Forces' high-tech surveillance. In the primary round of the exercise, the Red Team won the competition inside 24 hours, forcing exercise planners to controversially reset and update the scenario to make sure a Blue Team victory.
Lessons for everybody
The proven fact that terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and al-Qaeda prefer not to make use of smartphones is a reminder to all of us that everybody can and possibly shall be persecuted in alternative ways and for various purposes.
Israel's alleged response to Hezbollah's actions can be a lesson for all of us. From a cybersecurity perspective, it shows that each device in your life may be compromised by an adversary sooner or later in the availability chain – long before you even receive it.
image credit : theconversation.com