Mail With Bluetooth Device Tracked Dutch Frigate HNLMS Evertsen For 24 Hours, Causing Security Scare

A security breach was recently reported involving the Dutch air-defence frigate HNLMS Evertsen.

While it operated within a French-led NATO carrier strike group, its real-time location was compromised when a Dutch journalist mailed a Bluetooth tracker to a crew member stationed on the vessel.

Just Vervaart hid the tracker worth $5 inside a postcard and tracked the $585 million vessel for 24 hours as it sailed from Crete toward Cyprus.

Postcards are not usually X-rayed, so the device bypassed initial security checks.

Last month, a French officer on the carrier Charles de Gaulle accidentally revealed the fleet’s location by posting running routes on the fitness app Strava.

In 2024, sailors on the USS Manchester surreptitiously installed an unauthorised Starlink terminal on the ship’s weather deck, providing illicit Wi-Fi for 6 months before discovery.

While the tracker on the Evertsen was eventually found and disabled, the implications of this are severe.

If the real-time location of a naval asset is revealed, then the safety of the entire fleet is compromised.

After this incident, Dutch authorities have issued an immediate ban on electronic greeting cards.

This is also a reminder that in the age of Open-Source Intelligence, even a $29 AirTag or a morning jog can compromise a multi-billion-dollar military operation.