In an eye-watering demonstration of how the Internet of Things (IoT) can be employed to bring cyberwarfare into the physical realm, experts are scrambling to figure out how pagers used by Lebanon’s Hezbollah operatives were detonated yesterday.
At least 11 people are confirmed to have died, and up to 3 000 injured, when their pagers exploded. It is now believed that small quantities of explosives were planted in a batch of 5 000 pagers before they shipped to Hezbollah some months ago.
In what appears to be a co-ordinated attack, pagers exploded yesterday afternoon, beginning at 15h30 and continuing for about an hour. Some reports indicate that the pagers rang before detonating, so users had them in their hands when the explosions took place.
Hezbollah has confirmed that the pagers were used by its units and institutions.
The pagers were sourced from Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, and these particular units are said to have been manufactured under licence by a Hungarian company, BAC.