Amid Israel’s war against Hamas and fighting Hezbollah, Israel is suspected of conducting unprecedented cyber sabotage. (Photo: Aviv Shapira/AFP) (Photo: Aviv Shapira/AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
HHundreds of wireless pagers exploded simultaneously across Lebanon on Tuesday, sparking allegations that Israel may have hacked the devices of Hezbollah operatives.
But a former intelligence analyst said Forbes A completely remote hack is not the most likely explanation: “Based on the video, the explosion appears to have been much more powerful than a typical hacker could cause. [computing] “It’s a tip,” said a former IDF operative, who asked not to be named because of his previous affiliation to Israeli intelligence.
Investigators said a more likely scenario was that the device was intercepted before delivery and fitted with explosives and software that would detonate if it received an activation message. That wouldn’t have been particularly difficult to pull off, said Patrick Wardle, a cybersecurity researcher and former NSA analyst who is now CEO of security firm DoubleU.
“Basically you just put the bomb inside the device and connect it to a software-based trigger.”
“If you have physical access to electronic equipment, it’s easy to surreptitiously modify the device,” he said. ForbesHe noted that unless someone opened their pager, “you wouldn’t see anything unusual.”
“You basically plant a bomb in the device and hook it up to a software-based trigger,” Wardle said, citing work he did with another young hacker in 2014 that showed that with easily available explosives and a detonation chip, it was possible to detonate a Nest DropCam with a facial recognition match. “This is 2014…If two kids can do this, you can imagine what a real intelligence agency could do.”
This is not the first time Israel has been accused of digital sabotage: the 2011 Stuxnet attack, a malware attack that took down Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities, was blamed on Israeli and US intelligence agencies.
No official cause or explanation has been given by either side for the Israel-Hezbollah war, and former NSA analyst Evan Dornbusch warned that it’s important to wait for further investigations to pinpoint the exact cause before “throwing away your pager.”
