Can smartphones be turned into bombs like pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon?

Hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkie radios reportedly used by Hezbollah exploded simultaneously across Lebanon on September 18, killing more than a dozen people and injuring over 3,000.

The explosions caused widespread chaos and confusion, sparking fears about the security of communication devices. As the investigation into this attack unfolds, a critical question arises: can smartphones, the omnipresent devices of our digital age, also be weaponised to the same deadly effect?

What happened to the pagers in Lebanon?

On Tuesday in Lebanon, video footage captured one of the explosions inside a grocery store, where a shopper’s pager suddenly detonated, throwing him to the ground.

Such widespread detonations of pagers point to a highly coordinated and possibly external operation. Initial investigations suggest the involvement of explosives embedded in the devices, though the exact mechanics remain unclear.

A significant theory links these explosions to tampered devices, with some reports claiming that Israeli intelligence, in a covert operation, inserted explosives into pagers produced by Taiwanese manufacturer Gold Apollo.

Although Gold Apollo has denied these claims, T__he New York Times reported that Israel remotely detonated the devices by embedding a switch. Whether this is confirmed or not, the question on everyone’s mind is whether smartphones, widely used and similarly reliant on lithium-ion batteries, could be exploited in the same manner.

Could smartphones explode too?

Lithium-ion batteries, present in most smartphones, have been known to overheat and, in rare cases, explode. Overcharging, extreme heat, and physical damage to the battery can lead to these failures.

The infamous recall of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 in 2016, when multiple phones caught fire due to faulty batteries, is a prime example of how even modern devices can suffer from these risks. However, such cases are almost always isolated incidents caused by manufacturing defects or misuse.

The explosions in Lebanon raise the concern of whether such events could be orchestrated on a mass scale through smartphones. Experts argue that, while technically possible, executing such an attack would be far more complex and challenging than tampering with pagers.

Smartphones are equipped with sophisticated software and hardware protections, making them harder to exploit remotely.

According to a former British Army bomb disposal officer, pagers inherently contain components like batteries, which can be easily modified with detonators and explosives.

“A pager already has three of these components. You would only need to add the detonator and charge,” he told AP. This relatively simple structure makes pagers easier to weaponise compared to smartphones, which are packed with layers of security features.

What safety features do smartphones have?

Modern smartphones are equipped with lithium-ion batteries, the same technology found in the pagers that exploded. However, smartphones use advanced safety measures that significantly reduce the risk of overheating and explosion.

Many smartphones come with cooling systems, such as vapour chambers and graphite layers, designed to dissipate heat evenly across the device. In an iPhone, for example, if the device overheats, its software triggers a shutdown to prevent further damage, cutting off charging in extreme temperatures.

Even if a hacker attempted to manipulate a smartphone’s battery, it is unlikely that the phone would explode. Instead, the device might overheat, causing swelling or minor fires, but mass detonation remains highly improbable.

The phones don’t explode on their own, even if manipulated to increase battery heat. Safety circuitry in modern smartphones prevents such outcomes by stopping current flow during overheating.

What does Israel’s history tell us?

While the idea of smartphones being turned into explosive devices may seem far-fetched, Israel’s intelligence agencies have a long history of using mundane objects as weapons. In the 1990s, Israeli operatives killed Hamas bombmaker Yahya Ayyash by rigging his mobile phone to explode.

Similarly, a car headrest packed with explosives killed Hezbollah’s Imad Mughniyeh in 2008. More recently, in 2020, Iran’s nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated by a remotely controlled machine gun mounted on a pickup truck, highlighting how far intelligence services have come in weaponising technology.

However, modern smartphones present a much more challenging target for such attacks due to their complex structure. According to The Independent, while the Hezbollah pager explosions were an impressive feat, smartphones’ intricate hardware makes them far less susceptible to such modifications.

Could smartphones be the next target?

While it seems highly unlikely that smartphones could be weaponised in the same manner as pagers, experts are not ruling out the potential for future attacks on connected devices.

As Mark Almond, Director of the Crisis Research Institute in Oxford, asked, while speaking to Daily Mail: “How long before Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping works out how to make millions of iPhones around the world burst into flames in the pockets of their foes?” While this remains a hypothetical scenario, the growing complexity of cyber warfare means that no device is entirely safe.

The possibility of hacking into a connected car, baby monitor, or even wireless headphones has been a growing concern. According to Kaspersky, although iPhone viruses are rare, they are not unheard of. The Pegasus spyware, for instance, was able to compromise iPhones via text message. These incidents remind us that, as technology becomes more advanced, so too do the methods of exploiting it.

Should we be worried?

In the wake of the explosions in Lebanon, fears about smartphone safety have been on the rise. However, experts agree that the chances of your smartphone exploding due to external tampering are minimal.

While isolated incidents of battery malfunctions have occurred, they are mostly due to manufacturing defects or mishandling rather than a coordinated attack.

The explosions in Lebanon were likely the result of a specific operation targeting Hezbollah and using older, more easily tampered devices. Smartphones, with their advanced security features and intricate designs, remain relatively secure from similar exploitation.

Nevertheless, it is always wise to be vigilant and follow basic safety protocols, such as using official chargers and avoiding extreme temperatures.

With inputs from agencies