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this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
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Asklemmy
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I agree that malicious firmware could cause the battery to combust, but I don't think it would be lethal except in the rarest of circumstances. When li-ion batteries fail, they usually don't explode so much as rapidly catch fire and spew toxic fumes. As an attack on a person, I don't think you'd achieve much more than some burns and maybe respiratory irritation. It would probably be more successful to use it to start a house fire when no one is looking.
But also, the agencies capable of doing this aren't spending the resources to do it on some random person. They were targeting very specific people.
I'm pretty sure I've heard of at least two deaths from exploding smartphone batteries. Here's a source for one of them. I'm fairly sure I remember hearing of another where the victim had the phone in their breast pocket, but I'm not finding sources for that one now.
And those were just from faulty devices, not from specifically sabotaged/rigged devices.
Yeah, exactly. Very rare.