I dunno man. I just feel like if you’re at the point where you can clandestinely intercept huge amounts of your enemy’s personal communication devices, ‘turn them into bombs’ feels like a bit of a low-yield outcome.
They thought the pagers were secure communication devices. Now they know they are not. Hezbollah was maybe planning to escalate its attacks on Israel, without good, secure communications, they probably can’t. On the flip side, if Israel decides to invade Southern Lebanon to escalate things with Hezbollah, Hezbollah is going to have a much tougher time coordinating its defense since its supposed ‘secure’ communication system has just been blown up, the previous system (cell phones) what already suspected of being compromised, and now today, walkie-talkies used by the senior Hezbollah leadership have also exploded.
This is not normal for cyber ops. The only thing really that makes sense is if they needed to buy time so set off the pagers. Otherwise they just set their compromised communications devices on fire and told them they did it.
I meant it more like, why blow up the pagers you spent all this effort to compromise. I would have thought that having access to those devices would be worth more covertly.
I suppose its possible the only thing they could manage to sneak into the devices was explosives though, since you have to take the board apart to find it. Its likely it looked like a board component too.
These were one-way pagers that, given the scale, were probably used to disperse global messages to footsoldiers or the level right above. Like: “come if for a briefing to the usual spot”. That’s information that Israel can already intercept
Since they compromised the supply chain to plant explosives, they could have also put other tracking equipment in. Its possible though that it would be too hard to conceal an outgoing signal from testing.
We probably will never know the exact details, but it just seems like a lack of creativity to me. Seems more like a military attack than a cyber ops style thing.
Israel might have gotten word that one of the pagers got flagged at an airport X-ray or something. If you wait long enough it will eventually get figured out.
Yeah thats the thing I’m stuck on, it seems like a rush thing, but I’m not sure what would make them blow them other than they knew the secret was out or about to be out already.
I really don’t get it. Other than the “WAOW” factor, this certainly can’t have been a good use of resources for Israel.
They already believed their communications were being intercepted so switched to another method.
That method then literally blew up in their pockets.
The amount of fear and distrust of the supply chain can’t be overstated.
I dunno man. I just feel like if you’re at the point where you can clandestinely intercept huge amounts of your enemy’s personal communication devices, ‘turn them into bombs’ feels like a bit of a low-yield outcome.
Alternately this proves that they still are intercepting their communication AND can intervene in their supply chain.
I assure you that basically every nation state in FVEY (and then Israel by proxy) has the ability to intercept your communication.
This is something that ought to be considered as a basic entry level accepted threat.
NOW they know they have to worry about shit blowing up randomly, brand new stuff.
Consider it backwards: Israel sees this attack happening so valuable, that they were willing to forego using the pagers for spying.
Considering Israel’s history, I don’t know how much agreement there would be between my estimation of military value and the current administration’s.
They thought the pagers were secure communication devices. Now they know they are not. Hezbollah was maybe planning to escalate its attacks on Israel, without good, secure communications, they probably can’t. On the flip side, if Israel decides to invade Southern Lebanon to escalate things with Hezbollah, Hezbollah is going to have a much tougher time coordinating its defense since its supposed ‘secure’ communication system has just been blown up, the previous system (cell phones) what already suspected of being compromised, and now today, walkie-talkies used by the senior Hezbollah leadership have also exploded.
This is not normal for cyber ops. The only thing really that makes sense is if they needed to buy time so set off the pagers. Otherwise they just set their compromised communications devices on fire and told them they did it.
In which world getting thousands of Hezbolla operatives unwittingly keeping a bomb in their pocket would not be a good use of resources for Israel?
Because it changes nothing in the long run. So what exactly was so imminent that this had to happen?
What was so imminent that Hezbollah had to fire that rocket barrage some days ago?
You don’t seem to understand the nature of this conflict
I meant it more like, why blow up the pagers you spent all this effort to compromise. I would have thought that having access to those devices would be worth more covertly.
I suppose its possible the only thing they could manage to sneak into the devices was explosives though, since you have to take the board apart to find it. Its likely it looked like a board component too.
These were one-way pagers that, given the scale, were probably used to disperse global messages to footsoldiers or the level right above. Like: “come if for a briefing to the usual spot”. That’s information that Israel can already intercept
Since they compromised the supply chain to plant explosives, they could have also put other tracking equipment in. Its possible though that it would be too hard to conceal an outgoing signal from testing.
We probably will never know the exact details, but it just seems like a lack of creativity to me. Seems more like a military attack than a cyber ops style thing.
Israel might have gotten word that one of the pagers got flagged at an airport X-ray or something. If you wait long enough it will eventually get figured out.
Yeah thats the thing I’m stuck on, it seems like a rush thing, but I’m not sure what would make them blow them other than they knew the secret was out or about to be out already.
Hezbollah has been saying for a while it ‘might’ escalate its actions against Israel. Now… that does not seem as likely.