Could your personal smartphone be hacked to explode like the pagers in Lebanon?

Earlier this week, Lebanon was rocked by a series of deadly explosions involving pagers and walkie-talkies, killing dozens and injuring thousands. These incidents, allegedly linked to Israeli covert operations targeting Hezbollah, sent shockwaves through the region. The blasts have since sparked a wave of fear — can modern, personal devices like smartphones also be hacked and turned into weapons?

What happened in Lebanon?

The explosions in Lebanon were far from random. Reports suggest that pagers used by Hezbollah operatives had been rigged with explosives and remotely detonated, catching their users off-guard. Security sources indicate that the rigging involved physically placing explosives inside these relatively old devices, and then using the communication functionality of the pagers to trigger the blasts.

This raises the question: if pagers and walkie-talkies can be tampered with in such a devastating way, could modern consumer electronics — like your smartphone — suffer the same fate?

Are smartphones at risk?

The short answer is no, or at least not in the same way. The technology used in the pager attacks in Lebanon exploited vulnerabilities specific to older devices. Unlike the bulky pagers involved in the attacks, modern smartphones are designed with highly sophisticated internal components, which are tightly packed with almost no room for extra materials like explosives.
Moreover, the idea of hacking a smartphone to make it explode is highly impractical. While it's true that lithium-ion batteries in smartphones can overheat and, in rare cases, explode, this is typically due to manufacturing defects or improper charging, not hacking. Security experts stress that breaking into consumer devices to physically modify them with explosives would require access to the supply chain — an almost impossible feat on a large scale. In other words, your phone isn't going to explode just because someone hacks it.

Further, even if a hacker could compromise the software of a phone, it is unlikely that they would be able to create an explosion just by pushing code. Devices like pagers, on the other hand, have larger components and more rudimentary designs, making them more vulnerable to physical sabotage.

Why the fear persists

Despite reassurances from experts, the explosions in Lebanon have left many wondering what the future holds. As technology advances, so do the methods of warfare. While it is unlikely that your phone will ever be hacked to explode, the attacks on Hezbollah have inevitably sown fear that even everyday technology can be weaponised under certain conditions.
But for the most part, the average person needn’t worry about their phone becoming a bomb, as cybersecurity expert Daniel Card puts it. However, the fact that such attacks are happening on specific groups means we cannot entirely dismiss the potential for other forms of tech-based sabotage in the future.

These events serve as a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities in the devices we rely on, not just from a privacy perspective but from a physical security angle. Companies like Apple and Google have made strides in protecting their users from digital threats with regular updates and robust security features. However, physical tampering — like what happened in Lebanon — is a whole new battlefield that the tech world must keep an eye on.