So far, the attacks that targeted Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah members through their pagers have had devastating consequences. The pager explosions killed at least twelve people, including two children and wounded around 2,800. In a fresh wave of explosions Wednesday – this time walkie talkies – at least nine people were killed and more than 300 were injured.
CNN reported Tuesday’s attack was a joint operation between Israel’s intelligence service, Mossad, and the Israeli military. Israel has refused to comment publicly, while the Lebanese government condemned the attack as “criminal Israeli aggression.”
It’s important to note that the exact cause of the explosions hasn’t been confirmed yet, and the news is developing by the minute. So far, experts who spoke to CNN said the explosions were most likely triggered by hardware tampering rather than another theory of a cybersecurity breach causing lithium batteries to heat up and explode – but neither has been confirmed by authorities.
In short, your communications device is not at risk for exploding unless it’s heavily tampered with and laced with explosives, experts who spoke to CNN said.
The explosions came as Israel and Hezbollah have engaged in tit-for-tat strikes for months in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.
Pagers are wireless devices that can send messages without an internet connection. Though they’ve lost popularity to cell phones, some fields like healthcare still depend on them.
Justin Cappos, a cybersecurity professor at NYU, said that it’s possible to cause damage to a variety of batteries – most commonly lithium batteries, which have caused dangerous fires. But he said it seems like the “devices were intentionally designed to explode when triggered, not a pager that everyone else in the world is using.”
“If you’re a normal person with a lithium-ion battery I would not be over-concerned about this,” Cappos said.
Baptiste Robert, a cybersecurity researcher and the CEO of Predicta Lab, said that rather than being hacked, the pagers were likely modified before shipping.
He said the scale of the explosion seems to show it’s a coordinated and sophisticated attack.
Michael Horowitz, head of intelligence at security and risk management consulting firm Le Beck International, also said the explosion was probably caused by modification of the devices rather than a cyber-attack.
“We’ve never seen this tactic being used at this scale, but this does mean that this isn’t an attack that could affect all pagers. If correct, this would suggest a very high penetration of Hezbollah’s supply chain for those devices,” Horowitz said over email.
When it comes to battery safety, the National Fire Protection Association has a set of safety guidelines for lithium batteries, such as properly disposing of them. The association also said people should stop using devices with lithium-ion batteries if the battery shows any sign of damage due to risk of fire or explosion.
Infamously, in 2016, Samsung issued a global recall of the Galaxy Note 7 in 2016, citing “battery cell issues” that caused the device to catch fire and at times explode. Even then, however, reports numbered in the dozens, not thousands, and not in a simultaneous event.
In 2016, about 500,000 hoverboards were recalled due to a risk of “catching fire and/or exploding,” according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission.
It’s unclear what kind of battery the pagers in question had. A Lebanese security source told CNN that Hezbollah had recently purchased the devices.
A Taiwanese electronics manufacturer, Gold Apollo, denied making the pagers that had its brand’s name. Hsu Ching-kuang, the company’s founder, instead pointed to Budapest-registered BAC Consulting firm. Hungarian authorities denied that claim.
CNN’s Christian Edwards, Adrienne Vogt and Aditi Sangal contributed to this report.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
