Since the explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipeline in September, Europe has witnessed the breaking of submarine communication cables in Norway and the deliberate cutting of railway cables in Germany. The 20 October, the UK submarine fiber optic cable linking the Shetland Islands to Scotland was damaged. At the same time, submarine cables in the south of France also failed, affecting three important lines of communication.
The successive interruptions of infrastructures have raised concerns about the security of communications. The vulnerability of critical energy and communications infrastructure is of great concern.
UK Submarine Cable Outage Leaves Islands Offline
the submarine cable SHEFA-2, connecting the Faroe Islands with mainland Scotland via the Shetland Islands and Orkney, was damaged in two separate incidents, leaving most of the islands without internet connection.
Communications on Shetland were severely disrupted following damage to the submarine cable on 20 October. the chief minister, Nicola Sturgeon, says the islands are in a state of emergency. Police Scotland say they are working with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the UK coastguard, to provide additional emergency support to the islands.
The islands are 130 miles from mainland Scotland and have a population of about 23.000 population. Homes and businesses on the islands have been affected by it. The failure of the fiber optic cable has caused the interruption of some telephone services, broadband and mobile telephony. Many businesses were unable to accept credit card payments and the islands' banks suffered temporary closures.
The exact cause of the submarine cable failure is still being evaluated. The cable between the Faroe Islands and the Shetland Islands which was already damaged is being repaired. The head of the telecommunications infrastructure speculates that it was a fishing boat that damaged the cable. The damage to the submarine cable lines usually occur when fishing nets are dragged or, in some cases, the anchors on the seabed.
Nevertheless, it is very rare that two faults occur at the same time. Engineers are currently working to transfer services over alternate routes as soon as possible and the undersea communications provider is also repairing the link as soon as possible..
Critical Underwater Fiber Optic Cable Cut in South of France
The 9 October, local time, a serious incident occurred in a submarine fiber optic cable located in the waters of the south of France, which caused a massive failure of communications. The Marseille-Lyon sections, Marseille-Milan and Marseille-Barcelona of the submarine communication line were cut simultaneously. This caused a sharp drop in Internet access speed for users in Europe, Asia and the United States.
Cloud security firm Zscaler says some packets are lost due to undersea fiber optic cable being cut. And websites and Internet applications experience significant delays. French engineers have already launched an emergency investigation and repair.
A similar incident occurred in April in France, los fiber optic communication cables near Marseilles were attacked and cut off. According to images published on Twitter by the French Internet service provider Free, several cables buried under the concrete were completely ripped out and severed. These cables connect Marseille with Milan, Barcelona y Lyon. Authorities have not been able to determine if the two cable cuts are related..
No group or individual has claimed responsibility for the damage. The French police have not announced any arrests in relation to the same. It is not clear if the vandalism is related to the Covid conspiracy theories, anti-technological activities or other causes.
The Importance of Submarine Cables
Infrastructures under the sea include, in addition to oil and gas pipelines, numerous widely distributed submarine fiber optic cables. According to TeleGeography, there are more than 430 submarine communication cables around the world, with a total length of more than 1,3 million kilometers. In fact, the 99% of Internet data is transmitted through submarine optical fibers, while satellite communications currently provide less than 1% of data traffic.
The average number of repairs needed on submarine cables is more than 100 per year worldwide. The main cause of this damage comes from the trawl nets of fishing vessels or from the anchors. Human damages for specific purposes are relatively rare. From the engineering point of view, as it is not uncommon for submarine cables to be damaged, your repair is planned in advance.
Usually, the time it takes to repair submarine cables depends on weather conditions and water depth. And communication lines can usually be repaired in a week or so..
Will the Security of Submarine Communications be Guaranteed??
In a time, oil and gas pipelines and a large number of fiber optic cables under the sea were in danger of being deliberately sabotaged. But after the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, repeated attacks on targets on the seabed have caused concern in many countries.
Destroying one or two fiber optic cables is not enough to cause widespread outage. Nevertheless, the resulting consequences would be unacceptable for some specific industries. If damage to submarine communication cables becomes the norm, the impact will go far beyond the regional scale and directly endanger the world.
France is going to acquire its first unmanned submersibles and underwater robots in the coming months to prevent attacks on telecommunications facilities in French waters. At a summit in Prague in October, European leaders agreed on the need to reinforce the protection of sensitive underwater installations.
Nevertheless, it is quite difficult to protect these underwater facilities from damage. Norway has previously dispatched F-35A stealth fighter jets to conduct patrols. But after this, Norwegian oil installations continued to be damaged.
The destruction of Nord Stream was like opening Pandora's box. One after another, Europe's basic energy and communications infrastructures have been damaged. It is feared that the future of underwater communications security will pose a great challenge.