Hezbollah rocked by mass exploding pager cyber-attack

Over 1,000 Hezbollah operatives in Lebanon have been seriously wounded after their pagers exploded in what appears to be a coordinated cyberattack. The blasts occurred in southern Lebanon and Beirut’s Dahiyeh suburbs over the course of Tuesday afternoon, with some operatives reportedly throwing away the devices before they had chance to detonate. A Lebanese security source told Al-Hadath that Israel infiltrated the communication system, causing the explosions, though Israel has not officially taken responsibility. Over 50 ambulances and 300 medics rushed through the affected areas as casualties mounted, with witnesses describing ongoing explosions up to an hour after the initial blasts. The Iranian ambassador to Lebanon was also reportedly injured in the explosions, although these reports have not been confirmed by Iranian officials.

There are competing theories on just how such a clearly coordinated attack could have happened. One Hezbollah official told the Wall Street Journal that the pagers, a new model recently acquired by Hezbollah, may have been compromised through malware that caused the devices to overheat and explode. Another theory is that the devices were remotely detonated through some sort of hacked signal, possibly from within Hezbollah’s own communications network. Hezbollah officials have described the incident as the group’s ‘biggest security breach’ since tensions with Israel escalated following the war in Gaza.