by Mick the Ram

In the aftermath of the shocking events of 17 September when 12 people were killed and over 2,750 were badly injured, the remains of the pagers that exploded causing the devastation, showed a format and stickers on the reverse side that were consistent with pagers made by Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo.  

Gold Apollo immediately distanced themselves from any involvement stating that the product was manufactured by Hungary-based company BAC Consulting KFT, using its Lebanese facilities and that the exploding pagers merely carried Gold Apollo’s brand labels.

They say that the European firm started selling products under its brand three years ago, and where they distribute them has nothing to do with them.

According to sources, the pagers at the centre of the horrific incident are the latest models brought in by Hezbollah to evade any Israeli tracking of their locations.

It is thought that somewhere along the supply chain somebody has infiltrated the production process for the pagers and fitted explosives within them, which could then be triggered remotely without any suspicion.

Gold Apollo quickly deflects blame

Gold Apollo is a manufacturer who registered themselves in 2022, with a base in Xizhi, New Taipei City and concentrate their operation around wireless paging system production.

In a statement released late on Wednesday 18 September by the firm’s chair, Hsu Ching-kuang, he insisted that the AR-924 pagers that are known to be involved, were actually manufactured by BAC Consulting KFT, based in Hungary’s capital of Budapest.

He was keen to stress that in accordance with the licensing agreement that they have had in place for the past three years, they authorized BAC to use their brand trademark for product sales in designated regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are solely the responsibility of the Hungarians.

Mossad involvement?

Twelve people died, of which two were young children, when the pagers simultaneously exploded, leaving between 2,700 and 2,800 with terrible injuries, which in most cases involved the loss of eyes and hands.

It is widely believed that Israel is responsible – although they have not accepted any blame at this stage – with fingers pointing at the intelligence agency, Mossad.

Sophisticated infiltration

Experts believe explosive material was put into the pagers prior to their delivery and then subsequently used in a sophisticated supply chain infiltration project.

Supply chain attacks are a growing concern in the cyber-security world with many high-profile incidents recently caused by hackers gaining access to products while they are in development.

If that was the case in this event, then once armed by a signal, the next person to use the device would have triggered the explosive when a coded word was received.

If this was indeed a supply chain attack then it would have necessitated a huge operation to secretly tamper with the pagers in some way. These attacks are normally contained to software as hardware supply chain attacks involve physically getting hands on to the device.

Brand not used by group before

The AR-924 model is advertised as being “rugged” and capable of receiving texts of up to 100 characters. It contains a rechargeable lithium battery, which is understood to have up to 85 days of battery life, something which is crucial in Lebanon where electrical outages are common.

An operative of Hezbollah said that the pagers were a new brand that the group had not used before, and a Lebanese security official stated that around 5,000 of the devices were brought into the country around five months ago.

All the rage in the past

Pagers used to be all the rage in the eighties and early nineties, but lost popularity with the emergence of mobile phones.

The fear of these being hacked forced Hezbollah to turn to the wireless low-tech means of communication in the pager form, to also avoid location-tracking by Israel.

Is any device safe?

The whole of Lebanon are in a state of fear right now with regard to any devices, after further loss of life on Wednesday 18 September, when walkie-talkies began exploding in a similar fashion, this time claiming at least 20 lives and injuring a further 450 more.

The Japanese firm Icom, which apparently made them confirmed that production on the model IC-V82 involved was stopped 10 years ago.

They described it as a handheld radio which was exported to the Middle East from 2004 to 2014, but insisted that it had not been shipped since then, which points to counterfeit versions in circulation.