Are Smartphones Safe? Lebanon Pager Explosions Raise Concerns

Lebanon witnessed a series of explosions on Tuesday after thousands of pagers, allegedly used by the militant group Hezbollah, detonated simultaneously across the country. The coordinated blasts killed at least nine people and left over 3,000 injured. 

The explosions occurred in various public places, with reports flooding in from grocery stores, street markets, and other busy locations. Video footage from a grocery store showed a man shopping when the pager attached to his waist suddenly exploded, throwing him to the ground. Bystanders fled in terror as chaos erupted around them. 

Hundreds of Hezbollah fighters injured after mass explosions — Reuters

Hospitals in Lebanon are overflowing with mostly Hezbollah terror group members being taken to hospitals. A mass pager blast has killed and injured thousands of militants and ordinary Lebanese.

There are… pic.twitter.com/1bUC5FcJf1 — Insider News (@Ins1der_News) September 18, 2024

With pagers being outdated technology, attention has shifted to more modern devices like smartphones, which are widely used by billions worldwide. Could a similar malfunction happen with smartphones?

The notion of hackers turning smartphones into bombs is frightening but unlikely. Smartphone technology's complexity and safeguards minimise risks.

Hezbollah's use of pagers stemmed from security concerns. Simpler and less connected, pagers are harder to track and hack. However, reports suggest explosives may have been embedded in pagers. A New York Times report speculated that Israeli intelligence had inserted explosives into pagers ordered from a Taiwanese manufacturer, although the company denied the claims. If true, this suggests that the explosion was triggered remotely through advanced means.

When it comes to smartphones, they are more complex, with software systems and network connections. In theory, hackers could exploit vulnerabilities in smartphone firmware to cause overheating or malfunction, but mass-scale attacks would be far more difficult to execute compared to pagers. This is because smartphones have multiple security layers and safety measures to prevent battery overheating.

Modern smartphones are equipped with built-in safety mechanisms like temperature regulation circuits, which automatically cut off charging when the device overheats. Advanced cooling systems such as vapour chambers and graphite layers are also present, to ensure that any excess heat is dissipated.

As a result, while smartphones can occasionally malfunction and overheat, they rarely explode. In the rare cases where a smartphone catches fire, it is often due to physical damage or manufacturing defects rather than malicious interference.

Even if hackers could remotely manipulate a smartphone's battery to generate heat, the chances of causing a mass explosion are slim. In most instances, the phone would overheat and possibly swell, leak or catch a small fire, but an explosion on the scale of the Hezbollah pager incident is unlikely.