State ‘must protect’ hi-tech sea cables

It is high time that the State defends its critical national infrastructure by protecting the transatlantic cables that pass through Irish waters, says a naval officer.

State ‘must protect’ hi-tech sea cables

It is high time that the State defends its critical national infrastructure by protecting the transatlantic cables that pass through Irish waters, says a naval officer.

Lieutenant Shane Mulcahy, attached to the Naval Operations Command Centre, said Ireland needs to address the “vulnerabilities” of its undersea cable network, given how dependent our digital economy is on them. He said that around three-quarters of transatlantic cables in the northern hemisphere pass through or near Irish waters, the majority of them along a corridor less than 160km wide.

Lt Mulcahy said these cables are vulnerable to natural hazards, fishing anchors, and more hostile acts, including attack by intelligence or military agencies. He said the cables carry 97% of global data transmissions, with modern satellites accounting for just 3%.

Writing in the Defence Forces Review, published by the Irish Defence Forces, he said Ireland’s role in protecting this network is becoming increasingly relevant.

He said while a dragging anchor could cause damage, a “far more worrying” threat comes from a hostile act. He said subsea cables are a “soft military target”, which are fragile, geographically concentrated, often in remote and hard-to-monitor locations.

He said:

They can be attacked with little risk of loss to life, and any unwitnessed tampering can usually be plausibly denied

He said the “relative ease of severing a subsea cable” means a threat could come from non-state actors and that to avoid accidental fishing damage their locations are known.

The cables tend to be privately owned by telecoms conglomerates or the likes of Google. He said the lack of international laws makes it almost impossible for naval powers to effectively deter hostile vessels.

“With no alternative to using these undersea cables, Ireland must become more proactive towards securing the maritime domain on which our digital society depends,” said Lt Mulcahy.

On Ireland’s defence capabilities, he said: “Without systems capable of subsurface detection linked to data analysis systems ashore, the naval service remains quite literally, lost in the dark.”

He said a tentative tender process has begun with the aim of equipping the navy with more versatile and capable platforms, along with an increased mandate for further development in counter-mine and counter-improvised explosive device capabilities.

“The naval service is on the road to employing more capable systems to progress the ability to peer beneath the horizon,” he said. “However, these measures fall well short of achieving a robust level of maritime domain protection.”

Lt Mulcahy said the New Zealand navy has spent €60m to refit and repurpose a Norwegian support vessel. He said reviews of Ireland’s critical national infrastructure are needed to “address the vulnerability of our undersea cable networks and consider the adequacy of our maritime assets to counter the risk”.

He said “consideration should be given” to adopt protection zones, like in New Zealand, to protect cables and legislation to allow for sensors undersea.

“So long as Ireland remains socially and economically married to the vital but delicate network of glass [optical fibres] laying just offshore, it is high time we considered protecting it,” said Lt Mulcahy.

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