Hacker explains: Why are electronics exploding in Lebanon?
Summary
TLDRThe video discusses a sophisticated supply chain attack in Lebanon, where devices like pagers and walkie-talkies from a company called Apollo Gold exploded. The devices were part of a military switch to older electronics to avoid tracking. The explosions were likely caused by software triggering the devices to overheat their batteries, creating a targeted detonation. This incident highlights the risks of supply chain infiltration in electronics manufacturing, raising concerns about national security and the potential for similar attacks on other devices globally.
Takeaways
- 🤖 Several friends reached out with concerns about electronics after reports of exploding devices in Lebanon.
- 📟 The incident involved pagers, walkie-talkies, and other devices, especially those made by a company called Apollo Gold.
- 📡 Apollo Gold licenses its pager design to other manufacturers, allowing modifications that could have led to the explosions.
- ⚠️ Initial speculation involved possible infiltration of Apollo Gold's warehouse, but it's now believed to be a sophisticated supply chain attack.
- 💥 The explosions were targeted and caused by a software signal sent to the devices, not random battery malfunctions.
- 🔋 The explosions seem to have been triggered by a combination of modified firmware and the device's battery, likely causing thermal runaway.
- 💻 The attack showcased a high level of expertise in electronics, manufacturing, and software, with precise timing and targeted detonations.
- ✈️ Questions remain about how these devices passed through international travel undetected during the six-month period before they exploded.
- 🔎 The situation highlights the risks of supply chain vulnerabilities and the potential for national security concerns with compromised electronics.
- 📢 Additional reports suggest that other types of devices, such as walkie-talkies, also exploded, and the investigation is ongoing.
Q & A
What is the main concern the speaker is addressing in the video?
-The speaker is addressing concerns about a series of explosions involving electronic devices, such as pagers and walkie-talkies, in Lebanon. These devices were part of a sophisticated supply chain attack, raising questions about the safety of other electronics like cell phones or laptops.
Why are pagers still being used, and why did a military organization switch back to them?
-Pagers are still used because they are receive-only devices, which makes them harder to track compared to cell phones. The military organization wanted to reduce the risk of being tracked by using older technology that is less vulnerable to constant network updates.
What is the company Apollo Gold’s role in the situation?
-Apollo Gold is a company that manufactures pagers, and they license their designs to other companies. This licensing allowed other manufacturers to produce their devices, which were involved in the explosion incidents. Speculation suggests that a supply chain attack may have compromised these devices.
How did the attackers exploit the supply chain in this case?
-The attackers legally obtained the design of the devices through licensing, then modified the electronics, potentially adding explosive materials or altering software to cause the devices to explode after a certain time, possibly triggered by a signal.
What is the difference between typical lithium battery failures and the explosions observed in this case?
-Typical lithium battery failures can result in fires or overheating, but they don't cause explosions that create blast waves and shrapnel. In this case, the explosions were more sophisticated, indicating the use of additional explosive materials or intentional design modifications.
Can other consumer electronics like cell phones or toasters explode in the same way?
-No, it is highly unlikely that consumer electronics such as cell phones or toasters could explode in the same way unless they were compromised in the supply chain like the pagers and walkie-talkies involved in this incident. The explosions were part of a targeted attack.
How were the devices in Lebanon targeted specifically?
-The devices in Lebanon were targeted by a signal that was transmitted to the affected devices, triggering the explosions. This suggests that the attack was sophisticated and aimed only at specific devices, rather than all devices sold.
What makes this supply chain attack particularly sophisticated?
-This attack combined expertise in multiple fields, including electronics manufacturing, software manipulation, and chemistry. The attackers were able to create fully functional devices that worked normally for several months before causing a timed explosion.
Why hasn’t international air travel detected these compromised devices?
-It’s unclear why international air travel screenings didn’t detect these compromised devices. The speaker speculates that the devices might have been designed to evade such detection or that none of the compromised devices were exposed to the conditions that might have uncovered the plot.
What impact could this attack have on global supply chains?
-This attack will likely cause countries and companies to re-examine their supply chains as a matter of national security. It highlights the vulnerability of electronics to supply chain attacks and may lead to increased scrutiny and security measures in manufacturing processes.
Outlines
📱 Concerns About Exploding Devices in Lebanon
The speaker shares that many friends have asked about recent electronic device explosions in Lebanon, with concerns about their own gadgets like cell phones or toasters. The speaker explains that they will address these questions, specifically about pagers, walkie-talkies, and other devices affected in Lebanon. They share that they were tagged in a post on Mastodon, where the news first surfaced, and they encourage others to reach out via this platform for stories or tips. They hint at how widespread this issue is, with a developing story involving a company called Apollo Gold, known for making rugged pagers.
💥 Supply Chain Attack and Exploding Pagers
The speaker discusses the explosion of pagers produced by Apollo Gold, a company that licenses the manufacturing of their pagers to other companies. Speculation initially suggested a physical infiltration, but evidence now points to a sophisticated supply chain attack. The speaker, an experienced electronics manufacturer, explains how the attack leveraged access to manufacturing designs and speculates on how modifications to the device's circuitry or battery could have led to the explosions. This attack shows the vulnerability in licensing and supply chains, where seemingly legitimate devices can be modified to cause targeted damage.
🔋 Battery Explosions: Not Just Overheating
Contrary to theories of lithium battery overheating, the speaker clarifies that these explosions involved a detonation-like force, not simply battery fires. They share personal insights into electronics and battery failures, emphasizing that regular batteries don't cause explosions with shrapnel like the ones seen here. The speaker assures that common household devices aren’t likely to be compromised in the same way and notes the complexity of this particular attack, which combined software manipulation, chemistry, and electronics knowledge to cause the timed explosions.
📡 Walkie-Talkies and Additional Explosions
The speaker highlights further explosions involving walkie-talkies and other electronic devices, which have caused casualties. They point out that the walkie-talkie batteries appear to have been modified similarly to the pagers. They emphasize that the attack was highly sophisticated, involving detailed knowledge of supply chains, licensing, and technology to produce devices that functioned as expected for months before exploding. They question how these devices passed through air travel and other security measures undetected, highlighting the global implications for supply chain security.
🎯 Targeted Attacks and Remote Triggers
The speaker delves into the precision of the attack, explaining that only specific devices were targeted using a signal or error message that triggered the explosions. They discuss how the attack’s complexity involved hardware and software manipulation, leaving the world’s electronics and security experts in shock. The speaker reflects on the broader implications for national security, predicting that this event will push countries to scrutinize their supply chains more closely. They conclude with the understanding that the targeted nature of the attack and its ability to evade detection for so long makes this a unique and alarming case.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Supply Chain Attack
💡Electronics Licensing
💡Lithium Battery
💡Thermal Runaway
💡Printed Circuit Board (PCB)
💡Firmware
💡Blast Wave
💡Shrapnel
💡Pagers
💡Targeted Explosions
Highlights
Friends asked if they need to worry about their electronics, such as cell phones or laptops, due to the ongoing situation.
The developing story involves electronic devices like pagers and walkie-talkies exploding specifically in Lebanon.
The issue appears to be related to a company called Apollo Gold, which manufactures pagers used by a military organization that wanted less trackable devices.
Apollo Gold licenses its designs for others to manufacture, which has led to speculations of supply chain attacks.
Early speculation about infiltrations in the company's warehouse has shifted towards a sophisticated supply chain attack.
The supply chain attack appears to involve inserting technology that allows devices to explode at a later time.
While lithium batteries can overheat and catch fire, the detonations seen in this situation involve additional materials and modifications.
The attack targeted specific devices, suggesting that they were remotely triggered through a software command.
The design allowed the devices to function normally for several months before the coordinated explosions.
There was no evidence of this issue affecting consumer electronics like cell phones or toasters.
This is considered a highly sophisticated infiltration of the electronic supply chain involving software, hardware, and chemistry expertise.
The possibility of more global incidents of supply chain attacks is raised, with concerns about National Security implications.
The event will likely lead to an increased focus on securing electronic supply chains to prevent similar attacks.
The walkie-talkie explosions appear to be caused by modifications to the battery unit, which was likely triggered by firmware changes.
The entire attack is believed to involve transmitting an error message that activated the detonations only in specific devices.
Transcripts
several of my friends have reached out
to me and said hey you work with
electronics pretty often I know that
you've done some manufacturing uh what
exactly happened here like do I need to
be worried about my cell phone or my
toaster or my laptop or what really is
going on uh so today I'm going to take
some questions in regards to the ongoing
situation with pagers walkie-talkies and
other devices all specifically within
the country of Lebanon so uh yeah pretty
crazy developing story I'm going to go
ahead and put this on the screen just
because uh it was the thing that I was
tagged in most often also I wanted to
shout out uh anybody who wants to kind
of share a story with me or get
something to talk about on the stream uh
you can do that on my Mastadon account
so I left Twitter a while ago just
because um you know like things were
were I think it was oh yeah December
2022 uh if you want to tag me on a story
you can always go to infos sec. exchange
uh uh I am right here and this is how I
originally found out about the story I
was tagged really early and uh yeah so
uh thank you to uh tag hunt for tagging
me on the story uh the second that I saw
it I knew that we were going to discuss
it today so yeah if you got a tip if you
got something you want to talk about on
the stream probably the fastest way is
tagging me there but of course I'm also
going to go through our YouTube comments
this week as well so oh also good to see
everybody on the stream James uh SAQ uh
a cat uh we are early here but already
have some interesting stuff to cover so
all right again let me pull up the story
so it appears that yesterday um a number
of electronic devices exploded so this
was actually the one from today we also
have where's the first story here we go
um a bunch of uh pagers exploding
yesterday here we go uh all traced to a
company called Apollo gold so a while
ago this military organization had
decided that cell phones were too
vulnerable to being tracked so they
wanted to switch over to something that
was like receive only and kind of went
backwards towards uh electronics that
haven't been used at least for uh for me
anyway uh for a very long time so I
haven't seen a pager functional in a
while uh except for on like maybe
medical professionals or things like
that but uh these pagers are still in
use and in particular they allow you to
just receive instead of be connected to
Network and then constantly update your
location maybe it makes you a little
harder to track I don't really totally
understand the the decision to to go
back to using pagers and why it offered
so many specific benefits but that was
the decision so there is a company uh
called apoll gold that makes these pages
that are very popular they're rugged
they they work well uh but they also
license the ability to manufacture their
product to other companies so if you're
a company that has x amount of money you
can set yourself up and make it so that
you have all the necessary uh files and
everything to manufacture this product
and sell it for yourself if you wanted
to make a small modification like
possibly modifying the battery or other
elements of the circuit board or even
the programming then that might be in
violation of your terms of license but
it would be completely uh something that
you could do because once you license a
design like this you're kind of setting
yourself to be up uh to be able to
manufacture it yourself provided you
abide by the terms of that licensing so
what it looks like here is early
speculation was like oh somebody snuck
into this company's warehouse and
switched everything but it looks like
the reality was much more of a supply
chain attack so this is again I am uh a
Electronics person that manufactures uh
printed circuit boards and functional
Electronics with a team of people who
are much more experienced than myself uh
fairly regularly so when it comes to my
experience with uh Electronic Supply
chains and Licensing and that sort of
thing like I I worked around this enough
to to kind of see how clever this was
when it comes to having access to a
design all the schematics everything you
would need and then being able to
manufacture it legally uh at least at
first when when it's not exploding uh in
a way that is very very difficult to
trace the electronic supply chain is
very muddy there's a lot of kind of the
white label manufacturers well where
maybe they have a factory and they'll
gain the right to create a certain
product but they're not the original
manufacturer so that that appears to be
what happened here when it comes to the
first wave of devices where originally
people were suspicious maybe this
company had been infiltrated but it
seemed like they were merely licensing
their products so is it likely that your
cell phone or toaster or whatever is
going to explode no because it looks
like a highly sophisticated infiltration
of a supply chain that allowed uh the
perpetrators here to be able to uh put
out a device that functions normally and
then at a predetermined time received
software instructions to uh rapidly heat
the battery and cause a second element
to explode now it uh it's kind of
difficult to say exactly what was done
here like was the material in the print
circuit board uh perhaps like combined
with something that was explosive like
was there an element added to the
battery that uh was explosive like and
maybe more efficient battery material
was used in a in a smaller area it's not
really known here but what is known is
that this was not just lithium battery
overheating I saw some people saying
like you know any device could be uh
theoretically caused to do this and that
is absolutely not the case so that's the
number one thing I wanted to to spell
I've seen a lot of uh examples uh let's
say of lithium batteries overheating
exploding um shorting out you name it
I've made a lot of mistakes in
electronics and for example some of the
batteries around like ebikes or like
scooters are huge and if you make a
mistake with them um a lot of energy
will shoot out it's very energy dense it
causes a fire but they don't exactly
explode um a lot of energy is released
very quickly they burn very fast but
it's not a detonation and what I saw in
a lot of the videos here was definitely
a detonation uh a material that was
exploding so fast that it was causing
damage through a blast wave and shrapnel
that is not something that just happens
with a regular battery so uh unless your
specific device was compromised at this
Source it is not capable of uh exploding
the way that we've seen in some of these
videos so like some people who reached
out to me in uh you know my friends were
uh just curious like is it possible to
hack a device so hard that it just
explodes in this way and while it is
possible to cause a fire and it is
possible to maybe like you know burn
like burn someone or uh cause damage
it's certainly not possible to turn it
into a device that throws that much
shrapnel at least the way that we're
seeing in this case so absolutely the
wildest news I've seen probably in in
five years I think like of of uh just
covering like security news and uh just
keeping an eye on this like this is a
incredibly sophisticated supply chain
attack that took advantage of Licensing
it took advantage of software knoow it
took advantage of chemistry knowhow and
it also took advantage of uh electronics
and Manufacturing knowhow so being able
to produce a commercial copy of
something and add new technology to it
seal it have it operate for six months
and then in a targeted fashion have it
uh explode only in a single country um I
mean and I don't think anyone's said
this but did nobody who owned one of
these devices fly like in that period of
time anywhere uh or what sort of
screening did this have to pass through
in order for it to remain undetected for
six months like you would think that
International Air Travel like might have
ruined that whole surprise but anyway
like what I guess my my number one
reaction all of this is how many other
completely unrelated actors on like on
other stages around the world were
planning some sort of reveal that
involved an exploding device whose
millions of dollars of work is now
ruined by this event because people are
going to of course like you know I think
most countries are gonna be like all
right wow we really need need to examine
this and probably discover other
potentially unrelated plots to insert
similar things into Supply chains as a
result so really stunning that this is
going to make people read examine Supply
chains in a crucial way and see it as an
issue of National Security never again U
never again will uh we be ignorant to
the possibility that a well infiltrated
supply chain can have incredibly serious
consequences so like you know normally
this would be like oh no somebody put a
spy chip by you know creating commercial
copies this is not a spy chip this is an
explody box uh that was added instead so
um truly a stunning attack obviously
that's why I was tagged in it so often
like I I appreciate the complexity of
this you have to have modifications to
the original software or at least
something that's able to cause what
seems like a thermal runaway with a
battery that heats like a a secondary or
something that's uh very sensitive to a
particular temperature to then go off
and Trigger the rest of the explosive um
there's a lot of speculatory information
out there so uh just try to stick to the
facts on this one um but yeah uh some
pretty crazy stuff coming out today and
just wanted to calm anyone's who for one
is maybe like pushing their Electronics
to the side worrying if like any LiPo
battery could do this no it does not
look like that is the case um this is
truly like on the sucket level of crazy
uh targeted attacks when it comes to
electronics software infiltration
Hardware infiltration you name it um
this is quite an interesting developing
story so I'm sure a lot of people in the
electronic uh electronics world world
are going to be talking about this uh
people in the ha world are definitely
talking about this uh and it's a story
you're probably going to see continuing
to pop up as the story develop now the
fact that additional devices exploded
today is something that I haven't even
covered yet so uh today I saw several
videos uh showing Walky talkies also
exploding and it was mentioned that
other quote other electronic devices
were also uh exploding so these uh seem
to be a bit more deadly in terms of
actually like causing casualties from
what was reported Ed but if you look at
some of these photos it very much and
from having owned radios like this it
very much looks like the battery unit is
what exploded here the battery unit
Clips onto the back of these sorts of
radios I've used them when I was a
security guard uh and not this exact
model but other Motorola radios and when
the battery is clipped out in the back
here there's a very large battery unit
that is attached right here um that also
communicates with the rest of the device
through a little bust so it is possible
if the firmware was modified on these
that a signal from uh the radio could
cause the battery to heat up and then
possibly explode so kind of seeing a
pattern developing here uh but we will
have to see if there's any more
information or details about this uh
later in the day for now that's really
all the information we have and again it
does seem like this is something that
has to do with the electronic supply
chain um legally licensing some of these
designs and then producing copies um
which again requires a stunning amount
of technolog know how to make sure that
you're creating functional devices that
are getting no complaints that operate
as intended but also include new
technology that's able to uh you know
survive potentially getting left in a
hot car flying on an airplane or other
sorts of things that would like uncover
uh other attempts to do this sort of
thing so really gonna gonna have to have
a lot of these questions answered before
we know all the information but yes
thank you all for tagging me in this um
as an Electronics person I was talking
with this with some of my uh talking
with some of my colleagues about this
last night just about uh how
sophisticated of an attack this was and
how uh targeted at the same time it was
some people were also calling this an
incredibly uh targeted uh strike in that
it only went after specific devices so
uh that means that there was a signal or
a message that caused an
error I think it was CNN that was
reporting that there was an error
message that was transmitted to all the
devices that uh attempted to explode uh
so the fact that this was targeted
against specific devices uh it wasn't
like every device uh that was sold all
exploded at the same time it was
actually a message that was sent to the
device that caused it to uh go off so
yeah uh lot to absorb today um I've
spent uh several hours kind of trying to
keep up with what's going on looking at
photos uh chatting with other people
that are uh kind of interested in it and
uh yeah it's been a lot
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