Reported Risk of Undersea Communication Cable Sabotage Are Exaggerated

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Reported Risk of Undersea Communication Cable Sabotage Are Exaggerated

By CircleID Reporter
October 30, 2015, 6:52 pm PDT Views: 7,658 Add Comment

Responding to a recent New York Times article which warned the possibility of Russian submarines possessing the ability to sabotage undersea communication cables, Doug Madory, Director of Internet Analysis at Dyn, calls them exaggerated scenarios. “Submarine cable cuts occur with regularity and the cable repair industry has considerable experience dealing with these incidents. However, the vast majority of these failures are the result of accidents occurring in relatively shallow water, and not due to a deliberate actor intending to maximize downtime. There is enormous capacity and resiliency among the cables crossing the Atlantic (the subject of the New York Times article), so to even make a dent, a saboteur would need to take out numerous cables in short order.” And in the event that the cables are sabotaged, “the overall impact would be limited and many breaks would still likely be repaired within a matter of weeks (unless the cable repair ships themselves came under attack).”

By CircleID Reporter

CircleID’s internal staff reporting on news tips and developing stories. Do you have information the professional Internet community should be aware of? Contact us.

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