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Experian.
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Welcome back to the Watch Floor. I'm Sarah Adams. Today we're gonna cover a story that you don't see every day. And I'm surprised it wasn't at the top of news cycles here, but it was the fact that European authorities came out and they said they uncovered a network linked to Russia that placed explosive devices inside parcels. And then they moved them through international shipping systems. And in some cases, some of the parcels exploded ins, warehouses full of packages. I mean, this is actually, like, crazy if you think about it, because when we think of something like this, we think of terrorism, right? Years ago, al Qaeda did have a plot, you know, against UPS and shipping. But this is very different, right? This is a nation state doing this. These bombs weren't planted in buildings. They weren't set up to be placed on, like, a specific aircraft for any sort of a targeting. They were just hidden inside normal packages, moving through the exact same shipping networks that we use every day. Right? Our items from Amazon come through. So they then go to sorting warehouses, distribution centers, cargo hubs. Some, of course, went in airplanes. They went to logistics facilities across Europe. And investigators believe when those explosions occurred, they weren't an attack, they were a test. Right. That's incredibly significant. So this test, they believe, was designed to determine whether the explosives could move through this global shipping system and make their way onto aircraft and not be detected through the entire process. So they had to make the bombs real to test to see how vulnerable the system actually was. Before we talk about these explosives themselves, I do want to take a step back and just talk about this massive infrastructure behind modern shipping. Because these logistics networks are larger than any of us think. 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I'll be honest, the first time I ever saw this was in an ad by Richard Karn from Home Improvement. And when you get it, it's so much better than what you've seen on tv. It's incredibly lightweight, it's durable, and honestly, it makes watering my plants and I have a lot of plants so much easier. And it comes with a 10 year warranty. For a limited time. My listeners can get a free Pocket Pivot and their 10 pattern sprayer with the purchase of any size copper hose. Just text watch to 64,000. Again, that's watch to 64,000 for two free gifts. Watch to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply. See terms for details. So every day, tens of millions of packages move through these international shipping Systems. We have FedEx, UPS, DHL, and they have these massive logistics networks that span multiple countries all across the world. And a typical package moves through several stages in this process. So I can drop off a package in New York City today and it'll be in Europe tomorrow. So this system isn't just large, it is built for speed. So when we have speed, we always know there is a cost. And of course, the cost in this case is security. Think about it. If you have a million packages continuously going through a shipping center in one day, the chance you can check all of them is incredibly thin. So you have to pick and choose what you inspect, because, of course, if you were going to inspect all of them, you would clog the entire system. In an airport, thousands of people move through a day. Now, just put millions through your local airport a day and think of what that would do to screening. So the scale alone makes perfect and safe inspection impossible. And that, as you can imagine, creates a massive vulnerability. And it's a vulnerability we know, but still you want to test it to ensure, like Russia's doing in this case, that they can still move through what they want to move through, when they want to move it, and it arrives where they want it to go. You know, at first glance, when you look at the packages in this investigation, they seem completely ordinary. So the devices were hitting in things like massage pillows, cosmetic tubes, and even insects, toys. And we're going to explain to you why. And this might all sound strange, but from a smuggler's perspective, this makes a lot of sense. So these are extremely common goods that travel through these shipping lanes at all times. You know, they're not something unique. They're not an outlier. They're not going to bring in some sort of extra scrutiny or attention. They're also not items known to even hold explosives, as you can imagine. So it's not even like in the back of someone's mind, hey, I need to watch for this, just in case. Now, then we had the incendiary device, and that was actually hidden inside the massage pillow. And. And then other consumer items that had a lot of padding. So this was really interesting. So, you know, according to these investigators, that padding helps hide small electronic timers, wiring, you know, ignition components. And alongside the pillows, investigators said there was, like, tubes of lube. But when you went in and tested them, what was inside of them was flammable liquid components, including nitromethane. So these chemicals were actually there to work as an accelerant. What does that mean? The purpose here was a fire. Think about it. When you're testing this inside logistics facilities, obviously, if you have this small explosion, it starts a fire, and the accelerant then pushes the fire to grow. So that was actually the testing here, right? Could the fire initiate? How large did it become? You know, how difficult was it to contain, and what impacts did it have when it happened? So don't think of these as, like, large blasts are going to blow a hole in the wall of a building or a hole in the wall of a plane. So these are much smaller explosions just to create a fire. So investigators noticed something else in these shipments. And this is really interesting. And this is kind of around the fact that there were sex toys and then some of these items, like the massage pillow and the lube, that all fall into the same category. And investigators believe those were chosen for a reason. It's not just that they're normal supplies that go through the supply chain. It's the. The fact that they kind of discourage close inspection. I mean, think about it. In this warehouse, these workers have thousands of packages going through. You know, it's really awkward if they take like the sex toy out and start examining it. I mean, that's at least the way the Russians thought through it. You know, they looked at it more as human nature. So it wasn't exactly a security flaw, but they explained, exploited kind of how you would feel vice the technical vulnerability of it. So it's an interesting concept to think through and why they use the items that they did. So we talked about what European investigators found, you know, what the packages look like, the fact they carried explosives, the fact that they went into warehouse, the fact that some actually exploded, the fact that it leads to fires. But of course, it leaves the question, well, what the heck happens if it gets on an aircraft? Because remember, when we're talking about this massive shipping infrastructure, thousands of cargo aircraft today are moving these supplies, right, from clothing to medical equipment, to electronics, you know, to industrial gear. We put all of this on aircraft. Now, what is a lot more complicated than these kind of ground sorting facilities is when they go on aircraft, they all get put together in what are called unit load devices. So it's basically a container. You put all the packages inside of it, you seal it, and then you put it onto the aircraft. So by the time it's on the aircraft, you wouldn't like be able to easily go into this container, pull out one of these massage pillows and inspect it. So there really isn't any more inspections or opportunity once it gets loaded onto a plane. And so we have to be very honest about that. Now, when it gets on a flight, if we have one of these explosions or a fire, it can be pretty catastrophic. First off, these cargo flights operate at high altitudes, just like passenger aircraft. And then they also would incur some of the same problems, right? Structural damage, rapid decompression. Unfortunately, we have had cases of fires in these cargo aircraft, and it unfortunately has ended in a horrible way. A really great example was in 2010. I don't know if you remember this. It was a UPS cargo plane, and it left Dubai International airport. The aircraft was a Boeing 747 and it was a cargo jet. And what happened is, you know, these units that were put onto it were full of lithium batteries. So shortly after takeoff, there's a fire in the cargo hold. And within minutes the cockpit starts filling with smoke. The pilots can't even see their instruments. Obviously all the fire and emergency systems are going off on the aircraft. And so the pilots, of course, turn back around and try to return to Dubai. But I mean, batteries are so hot. So the fire grew so quickly, so fast that, and it was just so rapid. It killed the pilots, unfortunately, before they arrived at the airport and the plane crashed. You know, outside, inside of the city. This can be a very dangerous thing when we have a fire like this inside of any cargo hold on an aircraft. This episode is brought to you by Oneskin, the skincare company led by an all female team of longevity researchers. What caught my attention about Oneskin isn't the hype, it's the science. The these researchers asked a very simple question. What drives visible aging at the cellular level? 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Born from over a decade of research, OneSkin's OS1 peptide is proven to target the visible signs of aging, helping you unlock your healthiest skin now and as you age. For a limited time, try OneSkin at 15% off at OneSkin co. Watch again. That's 15% off at OneSkin Co with Code Watch and after you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support the show and let them know the watch floor sent you. Now let's jump back to the Russian incident. So if you have an intelligence service like the Russians, or you even have a terrorist group, which I usually like to cover, you know, they don't rarely launch a major operation before first testing it. Obviously, you got to make sure it works. So sometimes those tests do look like small attacks. Like I said, we did have a few of these packages explode in this instant. But the real purpose was to gather information. So we want to know, did the device go through security screening? How quickly, quickly did authorities respond, and what did their response look like? And then could investigators track where this shipment came from? Right. Could they pin it to us here in Russia? Which luckily they did do in this case. So every test for the bad actor reveals something about the security system and the process around it. Right. Which you're trying to exploit. It teaches you more about the vulnerabilities. It makes you realize there are components you maybe didn't consider. So think about it like someone who walks up to a building and they're testing all the doors. They're not essentially trying to break in. They're just trying to figure out, well, which one is unlocked. It's the same sort of context. It's information gathering. You know, before the 911 attacks, we did have pilots, you know, just take flight so they could observe the security procedures that go on. So they weren't doing anything specifically related to the attack. Right. That plane wasn't under threat that day. But they were able to gather key pieces of information to help them when they move forward and actually made it go to an operational stage. Because sometimes the most valuable part of this planning isn't when things go boom. It's like what you learn, you know, as you're testing these systems so you can improve the outcome of your attack. So why would Russia do this? It's called hybrid warfare. You know, hybrid warfare blends traditional conflict with COVID actions. But it's designed to create disruptions that don't lead to full scale war. So most commonly, we see cyber attacks, we see sabotage, we see influence operations. If there is some sort of event, proxies are used, and then we see different kind of disruption to infrastructure. This concept is not new, especially for the Russians. Back during the Cold War, Soviet intelligence, the kgb, put a number of these plans and plans, plots in place, and then deployed covert operatives. And the thing was, if there was like some brouhaha between NATO and the Soviet Union, you know, they would basically turn on their operatives to put these operations in place. They were focused on things like transportation systems, energy infrastructure, and logistics hubs. And, you know, after the fall of the Soviet Union and years later, a number of these archives became available, and we could actually see some of the exact plans. It was very interesting. There was a lot of plans for Europe and North America, and they focused on things like bridges, railways, power facilities and ports. The logic of this is extremely simple. If you disrupt infrastructure, and it's the infrastructure that really keeps us asleep, society functioning, you cause a chaos that's far greater than like, any single attack would do. Right. You've now made a massive problem for the government, and the government now has to deal with that. So the question is then, you know, why does this story matter right now? There's three things about this incident that I think really stand out. First off is the target. Here we have the global shipping infrastructure. This is pretty close to being essential infrastructure for the entire world. Even when we saw the Houthis delay some of these ships, it affected all of us. We have to keep that in mind. Everything goes through these shipping lanes. Medical supplies, electronics, industrial components. We all use the same, same logistics networks, and we rely on them. Second is the method. So parcel shipments are incredibly difficult to control. As I told you, there's millions of packages flooding these systems a day. It's made for speed. It's not made for a critical inspection of the items. There is a massive vulnerability here and a vulnerability that is easy to exploit. The third is the strategic message behind this. So when and if an adversary really disrupts the system, this leads to a lot of questions. And now everyone has to ask those questions because now it's proven Russia can do this. So you have to ask, well, how resilient are these systems? How quickly can we even detect one of these threats now that we know they're coming through these systems? And then how should a government respond when something like this occurs? Because it's like a gray zone. It's like not exactly a war going on, but it really is a small act of war being committed by the Russian government. It's a very, very complicated thing to deal with. And these questions are going to become more important as this geo conflict arises. You know, we're not just still in this Ukraine war that Russia started. You know, now there is this. This conflict with Iran. There's still a lot of unresolved issues around Hamas. You know, this Al Qaeda takeover of Syria, this terrorist takeover of Afghanistan. You know, there's issues all across North Africa. There are a lot of things that can occur. And you don't actually have to start with a missile or a tank. It's something that's going to test a government and put them at a point where they have to decide, well, how do I react to this? How far do I lean in? Do I get pulled into a war if that's someone's intention? It's a complicated thing, but it needs to be thought through now, because Russia is testing the system. You only test the system if you intend to potentially use it in the future. So the time now is to understand this vulnerability, look at it in the way our adversaries are looking at it, and think of how we get ahead of this. So what we saw here was a signal. It's a bright signal from the Russian government. Now, did they think European investigators would decide so quickly they are the root cause? Maybe not. And so that's a benefit to all of us. But it just means they will do it different next time and be smarter in the way they carry it out within this signal. We do have to remember just the simplest infrastructure can be used as a weapon. And that's why stories like this matter. And that's why we have to pay attention to all these quiet systems that work in our lives, too, because they are what can be tested and impacted the most when no one's paying attention. Thanks for being here today on the watch floor.