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Hack of Hezbollah Devices Exposes Dark Corners of Asia Supply Chains (msn.com) 65

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Deadly attacks using booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon has revealed significant vulnerabilities in the supply chains for older electronic devices. The incident, which killed 37 people and injured about 3,000, has sparked investigations across Europe into the origins of the weaponized gadgets.

Taiwan-based Gold Apollo blamed a European licensee for the compromised pagers, while Japan's Icom could not verify the authenticity of the walkie-talkies bearing its name. Both companies denied manufacturing the deadly components in their home countries. Industry executives say older electronics from Asia often lack the tight supply chain controls of newer products, making it difficult to trace their origins. Counterfeiting, surplus inventories, and complex manufacturing deals further complicate the issue.

Hack of Hezbollah Devices Exposes Dark Corners of Asia Supply Chains More | Reply

Hack of Hezbollah Devices Exposes Dark Corners of Asia Supply Chains

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  • Genius (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Friday September 20, 2024 @01:05PM (#64803125) Homepage

    I read somewhere that the pagers were sold by a shell company controlled by Israel. This means that not only did they infiltrate Hezbollah catastrophically, but Hezbollah paid for the privilege. This was a genius-level operation.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )
      Yep, current theory floating around in the news is that the EU company that licensed the design from Gold Apollo is actually a Mossad shell company. Basically set themselves up as a legit mfg/distributor and used that to sell the pagers to Hezbollah. They would have been planning this for ages. Explains how they were able to get 3000+ devices ready and in Hezbollah's hands when they needed them. That would also mean they were able to build them from the ground up instead of buying and modifying existing sto

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Are you sure Mossad was really careful to make sure none of those products ended up anywhere else? Are you certain that they didn't put bombs in any other gear? And can anyone say with confidence that now it's a proven tactic, nobody else is going to try it?

        This is a massive problem for supply chains and for distribution. How much more are you willing to pay for certified chains of custody that give you confidence that thing won't blow you up?

        • But certifying the supply chain could cause prices to increase... and we can't have that!

          I can't see a Walmart ad, where the smiley face bounces around the store adding "certified supply chain!" to their price labels, getting much traction.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            It's going to happen whether you like it or not. Businesses with demand it to cover their arses. Look at the damage being done to the companies that made these devices, and the ones that were in the supply chain.

          • Certifying the supply chain would do nothing but make prices go up, do you really think a spy agency doesn't have the resources to fake a certification. That is exactly what spies do, their main job skill is to lie effectively.

        • How much more are you willing to pay for certified chains of custody that give you confidence that thing won't blow you up?

          How much more is some company willing to charge for pseudo-certified chains of custody that give you false confidence? That's the really scary question.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Imagine some big supplier like Mouser or Digikey was involved in this. Some product they supplied turned out to have a Mossad or North Korean or terrorist (but I repeat myself) bomb in it. There are other suppliers who sell the same stuff, people have a choice.

      • The shell company was legit manufacturing & selling them before the larger order came in. They were selling them to other customers, probably other terrorist orgs as well. This was a massive undertaking setting up a legit company and just waiting for them to switch to low tech. This could have been a huge waste of time. Who knows what else Mossad is doing out there waiting for the strategy to win.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Well, evil genius. There is the little problem with killing children and civilians and generally making the world a less safe place.

      • The Mossad doesn't give a rat's ass about that, as long as they aren't Israeli citizens, as far as I can tell.

        • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Reminds me of the stance that some historical German organizations had.

          • Reminds me of the stance that every nation that ever went to war had.

            Those German organizations did give a rat's ass about killing civilians and children they actively tried to kill them, they specifically rounded them up and killed them even once they where captive.

            That is the key difference here, Jews where never an active threat to Germans in any way shape or form, their goal was to eliminate all Jews. Here Israel may want the land, but if every Palestinians packed up their bags an left, and the stopped

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by taustin ( 171655 )

          They're too busy worrying about the several dozen children deliberately murdered on Oct 7, I guess.

          • Frankly, while the Israel - haters out there seem to forget that 7 October happened, I think the Mossad is more concerned with killing than with mourning the dead.

        • For context, wars usually have about 50% civilian casualty ratio, which can easily go up to 90% for urban warfare. If this boils over to a war, the civilian casualty ratio will be dramatically higher than the pager/walkie-talkie operation. And it will be worse than the usual ratio, for obvious reasons.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          • thanks for the info. I was not aware the civilian casualty rate was so high, but then again in recent years it has often seemed that far more civilians have been killed than soldiers/combatants.

            • That is largely because recent conflicts tend to have the military too close to the civilians, also battle lines move too quickly to evacuate civilians before they're in a combat zone, and rocket and artillery ranges are longer then ever (inaccurate + explosive).

      • to be clear, I am in no way praising the Mossad in my previous reply to you, far from it!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          I am clear on that. You merely stated what is likely a fact.

          • In the past, I had heard rumors that the Mossad had withheld intelligence that affected the USA as well. Not sure if those rumors are true or not, but I do have my opinions, in this case, uneducated opinions, though I try to not have those as often as possible.

            But yeah, minimizing collateral damage (what a asinine euphemism!) seems to be of very little importance to several Nations out there. And of course, as demonstrated by these actions of the past few days.

      • Re:Genius (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dskoll ( 99328 ) on Friday September 20, 2024 @01:42PM (#64803227) Homepage

        Hezbollah doesn't seem to have a "problem with killing children and civilians", so my sympathy for those Hezbollah people affected in those attacks is zero.

        I have sympathy for people who were collateral damage, but as far as attacks go, this one probably had the lowest ratio of collateral to intentional damage of pretty much any counter-terrorism action in recent years.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          this one probably had the lowest ratio of collateral to intentional damage of pretty much any counter-terrorism action in recent years

          That is because for example the US has repeatedly committed mass-murder of civilians in "counter-terrorism" in the past. Being less of a war-criminal is really not a great achievement and does not make the actions taken ok.

        • I do not weep for the Hitler Youth, and neither should you.

      • When Hezbollah et:al decide to stop calling for the complete obliteration of Israel, we can talk. Till then no so much.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by taustin ( 171655 )

        Yeah, the Islamic terrorists do a lot of that, the killing of children and civilians.

        There's no one involved on any side who doesn't have the blood of children on their hands.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Yes. But Israel pretends to be a civilized nation. With its current leadership, it is not.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dbialac ( 320955 )
        Nearly everyone killed were Hezbollah and their children. As an alternative, how many children and actual civilians would have died in a traditional bombing to take out one member?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          So you approve of killing children, merely because of who their parents are? The Germans liked to do that too.

      • Don't blame the Mossad for Hezbollah's wrongdoings.

      • I mean, have you been to the middle east? Or read a news article from the last 7 decades, or the just the last 7 weeks?

        You can't call for Israel to pull punches when their adversaries not only want to A) kill everyone in Israel and regularly call for genocide against all Israelis, B) actually kidnap and murder civilians in an armed incursion, C) use suicide bombs to kill Israeli civilians on a regular basis, D) use their own people as human shields.

        There's no clean fighting in the Middle East.

      • Well, evil genius. There is the little problem with killing children and civilians and generally making the world a less safe place.

        Still it was MUCH more controlled that raining bombs or missiles to target that many terrorists.....in war you're always going to have collateral damage.

        In this case it was radically minimized.

    • I guess that one weakness that was exploited was that all the equipment were single sourced. That makes sense from a control standpoint however once Israel figured out the source, they could use that weakness. Someone said that a side benefit of the attacks is target identification. Anyone that has was recently injured is now suspected of being part of Hezbollah. Before, it was difficult to know who might be using a Hezbollah pager. Now Israel can figure would who visited a hospital recently due to a pager

    • Re: (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) *

      > This was a genius-level operation.

      Not really.

      They were supposed to blow them as they invaded Lebanon but a tech in Lebanon reverse-engineered it and as soon as Israel got word they'd been found out they sent the blow code because it was more to their advantage.

      The Lebanese were overly cautious about their analysis.

      This is why so many children and other civilians were injured and killed.

      Israel was not done trying to goad the DC Mafia into fighting their war in Iran (election concerns) so the opportunity

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's concerning that Israel is willing to injure or kill civilians to get at its enemies in countries that it is at war with. Can you imagine if they bombed a hotel in your town where they claimed a Hezbollah "commander" was staying?

      Don't blame Lebanon for not kicking them out. Lebanon couldn't if they wanted to, and if they did it would be about 8 seconds before Israel annexed part of their country and sent settlers there.

    • Could Nasrallah is the mole. He has been the one encouraging Hezbollah to ditch their mobiles in favor of Pagers for 2 years now.

  • Anybody that buys cheap electronics from Asia should know that you need to have a careful look at what you are getting. Fire hazards, electrocution hazards, explosion hazards (without actual explosives) are common and are non-functional, partially functional and unreliable products. That is not to say all Asian suppliers are bad. You can get good products even from China and it is not even hard. But you need to make sure. That quality control was obviously not done, but I bet it will be done now.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      And why would this get modded down? I see some useful idiot got mod-points by accident. Again.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Got any more mod-points to waste, dumbfucks? Because I am still posting at +1, despite your dishonorable and dishonest efforts. I wonder why that is.

  • ..and that's what's most chilling about this to me.
    What's to stop some enemy of the U.S. doing this to us?
    For that matter: what's to stop Israel from doing things like this to anyone, anywhere -- even us?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dskoll ( 99328 )

      It wouldn't make sense for someone to attempt this sort of attack against random people, because it's much too difficult and sophisticated. So it would be attempted only against a military target.

      I would hope that Western militaries X-ray, disassemble, and examine in minute detail samples of anything they procure before distributing it in the field.

    • The Israelis haven't caused damage to American targets on that scale since the USS Liberty incident in 1967. As for other possible aggressors, it would be easy for China to attempt such an attack on pretty much anyone.

    • What a strange worry. Are you a terrorist buying a pager and a walky-talky to avoid being located via GPS as you fire missiles at civilians?

    • For that matter: what's to stop Israel from doing things like this to anyone, anywhere -- even us?

      Easy - they need us to pay for a significant part of their annual national budget. We give them billions in cash, every year.

  • Every self-respecting organisation will now want to open and verify their purchases to see if there's no tampering being done with the hardware in manufacturing or in transit. I hope this will boost the 'repairability' factor needed. One can only verify a product if it can be opened and put together again. Like, for example, the fairphone. While this has been a human tragedy for all the victims involved, maybe there will be some positive influence on the long term?
    Yes, I'm an optimist...

  • Hey Abdul! Some guy named Shlomo Goldberg just got me a great price on pagers!
    Awesome, buy them, and make sure our technician Hyman Katzenberg takes a good look at them first!

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