\n<\/p>\n
The risk of Russia- and China-backed attacks on undersea cables carrying international internet traffic is likely to rise amid a spate of incidents in the Baltic Sea and around Taiwan, according to a report.<\/p>\n
Submarine cables account for 99% of the world\u2019s intercontinental data traffic and have been affected by incidents with suspected state support over the past 18 months.<\/p>\n
Analysis by Recorded Future, a US cybersecurity company, singled out nine incidents in the Baltic Sea and off the coast of Taiwan in 2024 and 2025 as a harbinger for further disruptive activity.<\/p>\n
The report said that while genuine accidents remained likely to cause most undersea cable disruption, the Baltic and Taiwanese incidents pointed to increased malicious activity from Russia and China.<\/p>\n
\u201cCampaigns attributed to Russia in the North Atlantic-Baltic region and China in the western Pacific are likely to increase in frequency as tensions rise,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n
Incidents flagged by the report included the severing of two submarine cables between Lithuania and Sweden in the Baltic Sea last November, which investigators blamed on an anchor dragged by a Chinese vessel. In December a ship carrying Russian oil was seized after it severed cables between Finland and Estonia.<\/p>\n
Incidents around Taiwan over the past 18 months include a Chinese-crewed freighter cutting cables between the island and its outlying Penghu Islands in February by repeatedly manoeuvring in a zigzag pattern over the cables. The previous month, a Chinese-owned cargo ship was cited as the likely cause of damage to a Taiwan-US cable.<\/p>\n
The report said: \u201cWhile it is difficult to definitively attribute recent incidents in the Baltic Sea and around Taiwan to state-sponsored sabotage, such operations align with both Russia and China\u2019s strategic objectives, recently observed activities, and current deep-sea capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Recorded Future said a successful attack on multiple cables \u2013 which would cause prolonged disruption \u2013 would have to occur in deeper waters and would \u201cvery likely involve state-sponsored threat actors, due to the difficulty of accessing these sites\u201d. Such an operation would probably take place before outright conflict, the report said.<\/p>\n
Recorded Future identified 44 cable damages over the past 18 months, a quarter caused by \u201canchor dragging\u201d and nearly a third by \u201cunknown causes\u201d, with seismic activity or natural phenomena causing 16% of the incidents.<\/p>\n
<\/span>An undersea cable being laid in the Baltic Sea. Analysts say targeting these cables can be an attractive tactic because the damage can be passed off as an accident.<\/span> Photograph: Lehtikuva\/Reuters<\/p>\n Analysts added that damaging subsea cables could be an attractive tactic because it allowed states to target adversaries\u2019 infrastructure via an unsophisticated method that could be passed off as an accident or be carried out by vessels without direct links to the attacks\u2019 suspected sponsor.<\/p>\n Recorded Future said improved monitoring of cables and security measures around subsea infrastructure, as well as comprehensive stress tests, would help prevent an incident damaging multiple cables and causing \u201cprolonged connectivity issues\u201d.<\/p>\n Despite the high-profile Baltic and Taiwan incidents, the three most disruptive incidents were elsewhere: in the Red Sea in February last year when a Houthi missile caused a ship\u2019s anchor to hit cables \u2013 leading to \u201csignificant impact on communication networks in the Middle East\u201d; in west Africa a month later due to an underwater rock slide; and off the coast of South Africa in May 2024 due to a cable-dragging incident.<\/p>\n Recorded Future said the impact of the Red Sea and Africa incidents showed that the most prolonged disruption happened in areas with limited availability of alternative cables and a shortage of repair expertise regardless of the cause of the disruption.<\/p>\n Conversely, two attacks in the Baltic Sea in November last year had minimal impact due to spare capacity and Europe\u2019s resilient internet infrastructure. However, the report said three EU island member states \u2013 Malta, Cyprus and Ireland \u2013 were more vulnerable due to their reliance on submarine cables for international communications.<\/p>\n The UK government\u2019s recent strategic defence review acknowledged the potential threat to the country\u2019s subsea cabling and recommended that the Royal Navy takes a \u201cnew leading and coordinating role in securing undersea pipelines, cables, and maritime traffic carrying the information, energy, and goods upon which national life depends\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The risk of Russia- and China-backed attacks on undersea cables carrying international internet traffic is likely to rise amid a spate of incidents in the Baltic Sea and around Taiwan, according to a report. Submarine cables account for 99% of the world\u2019s intercontinental data traffic and have been affected by incidents with suspected state support<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[1839,4525,1076,2153,293,313,736,523,4526,3347,1060],"class_list":{"0":"post-11230","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-attacks","9":"tag-backed","10":"tag-cable","11":"tag-china","12":"tag-report","13":"tag-rise","14":"tag-risk","15":"tag-russia","16":"tag-telecoms","17":"tag-undersea","18":"tag-warns"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}