A wave of deadly explosions rocked Lebanon when electronic pagers across the country detonated simultaneously, killing 12 people and injuring over 2,700. The following day, another coordinated series of explosions occurred, this time involving walkie-talkies, further deepening the sense of fear and chaos in the country. Both attacks seemed to specifically target members of Hezbollah, a militant group with longstanding enmity toward Israel.
The meticulous nature of the attacks immediately raised suspicions of a carefully orchestrated plan. According to U.S. officials quoted in The New York Times, the devices were likely sabotaged by Israeli operatives. The report suggested that explosives had been covertly planted within the communications devices, which Hezbollah had recently ordered. By infiltrating the supply chain, Israeli intelligence agencies allegedly aimed to neutralize Hezbollah operatives and disrupt their communications without launching a conventional military strike.
These incidents underscore the growing role of sophisticated espionage and cyber operations in modern conflict. The Hezbollah attacks, while devastating, are part of a broader trend of state and non-state actors using covert techniques to target adversaries’ communications infrastructure. The consequences for Hezbollah were severe, and the attacks sent a clear message that even low-tech devices like pagers and walkie-talkies are not immune from infiltration by state-sponsored espionage networks.
Secret Supply Chain Attacks: A Longstanding Strategy
The technique of secretly tampering with supply chains is not new in the world of espionage and military operations. While targeting Hezbollah’s pagers with explosives is novel in its lethality, the broader concept of intercepting and compromising devices has been employed for years by various intelligence agencies.
One well-known example involves the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), which reportedly intercepted hardware shipments bound for foreign customers, inserted malware or surveillance tools into the devices, and then sent them on to their final destinations. This practice, revealed in a 2010 NSA internal document, highlights the global scale and technical sophistication of such operations. In those cases, the objective was more about intelligence gathering than direct physical harm, but the principle remains the same: exploit the supply chain to gain an advantage over adversaries.
Similarly, Israel’s Shin Bet security agency used a comparable method in 1996 when it planted explosives in a mobile phone that was delivered to a Hamas bombmaker. The device was remotely detonated, killing the target and demonstrating the deadly potential of infiltrating personal communications devices.
These techniques differ from traditional hacking methods, such as exploiting software vulnerabilities on a device in use. Supply chain attacks introduce an entirely new dimension to the conflict, ensuring that even before a device reaches its end user, it could already be compromised.
Hezbollah’s Shift to Low-Tech Communications
Following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Hezbollah began to shift away from smartphones and other high-tech communications tools, increasingly adopting lower-tech devices like pagers and walkie-talkies. The group likely believed that these older technologies offered them an advantage against Israel’s sophisticated surveillance network, which excels at tracking cellphones.
Cellular devices are often considered one of the most reliable tracking tools available to governments, law enforcement, and even private companies. Governments can track people’s movements through cellphone network location data, often in real-time, or even by using so-called “Stingray” devices that impersonate cellular towers to capture location data. Criminals, hackers, and commercial entities also exploit these vulnerabilities for their own purposes, collecting and selling vast amounts of user data.
How Mobile Phones Are Tracked
The ability to track mobile phones comes from several technological capabilities built into modern devices. First, mobile networks themselves constantly monitor phone locations through their connections to nearby cell towers. Law enforcement agencies worldwide have been known to use Stingray devices, which mimic legitimate cell towers, to intercept these signals and locate specific phones. These methods are frequently employed in counter-terrorism operations, criminal investigations, and other sensitive missions.
In addition to cellular network tracking, phones are also equipped with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPS capabilities, which can further provide granular location data. These features, designed for user convenience—such as helping locate a lost phone or find a restaurant—can also be exploited by attackers. Governments, private companies, or malicious actors can use this technology to track individuals, often with little oversight.
Another layer of vulnerability comes from the software installed on mobile devices. Apps and operating systems routinely collect location data for various purposes, including advertising and user profiling. Many users unknowingly grant permissions to apps that allow extensive tracking, often without fully understanding the implications.
In contrast, pagers—especially those with one-way communication capabilities—do not continuously broadcast location data in the same way smartphones do. This makes them harder to track, offering a perceived layer of anonymity to groups like Hezbollah, which are constantly under surveillance.
The Vulnerabilities of Supply Chains
Despite their efforts to shift to low-tech communications, Hezbollah was still vulnerable—this time not because of their choice of technology but because of the supply chain. By targeting the communications devices Hezbollah had ordered, Israel’s intelligence services showed that no device is safe from manipulation.
This type of supply chain infiltration is a nightmare scenario for organizations that rely on sensitive technology. Modern supply chains are complex, involving numerous stages of production, packaging, and transportation, often across multiple countries. At any point along this chain, a device could be intercepted, tampered with, and then passed along to its intended recipient without anyone realizing what had happened.
This approach is more effective in some ways than traditional hacking. Once a device reaches the hands of its target, it may be harder to manipulate without detection. But if the device is compromised before it even reaches the intended user, the attacker gains a significant advantage. For Hezbollah, this realization likely came too late. By the time the explosive-laden pagers were distributed, it was impossible to prevent the ensuing catastrophe.
Israel’s Continued Tactics Against Hezbollah
Hezbollah has been a major adversary of Israel for decades, and the two have been engaged in a protracted conflict across multiple domains—military, political, and technological. Over the years, Hezbollah has adapted its tactics to counter Israel’s military superiority, often turning to asymmetric warfare strategies.
One of Hezbollah’s key challenges has been navigating Israel’s exceptional ability to conduct electronic surveillance. As mobile phones became more vulnerable to tracking and interception, Hezbollah’s shift to low-tech solutions like pagers was seen as a way to evade Israel’s grasp. However, as the recent attacks demonstrate, even the most basic communication devices are not beyond the reach of Israel’s intelligence services.
In a speech earlier this year, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah urged his members to abandon mobile phones altogether, warning that “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.” Nasrallah’s remarks reflected a growing awareness within Hezbollah of the dangers posed by mobile phone surveillance.
The Legacy of Asymmetric Warfare
Hezbollah’s use of low-tech devices like pagers and walkie-talkies aligns with a broader pattern seen in asymmetric conflicts, where weaker opponents adopt unconventional methods to counter stronger, more technologically advanced foes. This has been true of many insurgent groups that face powerful state militaries, including al-Qaida and the Taliban.
One famous example of this dynamic occurred during the U.S. military’s Millennium Challenge war game in 2002. During the exercise, insurgent Red forces, led by Marine General Paul van Riper, employed low-tech tactics such as using motorcycle couriers instead of cellphones to communicate. These methods helped the Red team evade the technologically superior Blue forces, achieving a simulated victory within just 24 hours. The exercise was controversially reset and updated to ensure a victory for the Blue team.
For groups like Hezbollah, low-tech solutions may be seen as essential for survival against technologically advanced opponents. However, the recent pager explosions highlight the limits of such tactics. No matter how low-tech their communications become, these groups remain vulnerable to the far-reaching capabilities of modern intelligence agencies.
The attacks on Hezbollah serve as a reminder that no device, no matter how low-tech, is entirely safe from manipulation. Supply chain infiltration is a sophisticated and increasingly common tactic in modern intelligence warfare, and its implications are far-reaching. Whether through targeted malware or hidden explosives, devices can be compromised long before they reach their users.
For governments, organizations, and individuals, these incidents highlight the importance of securing supply chains and ensuring that the devices they use have not been tampered with. The growing reliance on technology for communication and other vital functions means that vulnerabilities in the supply chain can have catastrophic consequences.
As the world becomes more interconnected, with devices manufactured and transported across multiple borders, the security of these supply chains will become even more critical. The events in Lebanon are a stark reminder that even the simplest technology can be weaponized by determined adversaries, and the need for vigilance has never been greater.
