The IT Nerd

I have to admit that I didn’t have “pagers blowing up” on my BINGO card related to Hezbollah/Israel war. But here we are talking about it.

What we know is pagers across Lebanon blew up killing eight and wounding almost 3000 people according to Reuters. That implies some sort of co-ordinated attack. But by whom specifically is unknown at this time.

Some of you are wondering why we’re talking about pagers in 2024. Here’s the answer:

Hezbollah fighters have been using pagers as a low-tech means of communication in the belief they could evade Israeli location tracking, two sources familiar with the group’s operations told Reuters earlier this year. A pager is a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays messages.

The fact that Reuters has to explain what pagers are shows you how old they are.

Former NSA cybersecurity expert Evan Dornbush offers the following perspective:

“Cyberattacks have caused physical damage before – the 2010 power grid surge and an attack on an electric vehicle in 2016 are examples. However, the myriad of public videos makes this one visceral even to people who don’t think about supply chain security or cyber matters.

“But before we all go throwing out our pagers, it is important to note that the exact cause of this is likely being investigated by many and details will likely emerge. Videos imply that the devices seem to be narrowly targeted to particular operators. From what I’ve seen the explosions appear narrow as well.”

This whole thing sounds like something out of a James Bond movie. If there are additional details, I’ll be really interested in reading them.

This entry was posted on September 17, 2024 at 5:05 pm and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.