Science
Target of attack undersea cable
How endangered is the critical infrastructure of the global data network?
They are the arteries of world communication: More than 98 percent of Internet connections run via undersea fiber optic cables. Without them, the internet would collapse in many regions and large parts of the economy and everyday life would be affected. But how secure is this critical infrastructure? And how endangered is Europe’s connection to the digital world?
The blasting of the Baltic Sea pipelines in September 2022 made many people aware that part of our critical infrastructure lies on the seabed – and has so far been inadequately protected. The Achilles’ heel for Europe and other regions is less the pipelines than the countless fiber optic cables that form the backbone of global data traffic.
