Cables have been cut again in France. But this time the attackers apparently aimed precisely at international data traffic. reported about it „heise.de“.
The industry service writes that the strangers struck on the night of October 19. Three fiber optic cables were cut near Marseille. This time, worldwide data highways are affected, over which information races thousands of kilometers to Australia and Southeast Asia.
“International Dimension” is new
It is not the first attack on cables in the French port city area. Two acts of sabotage had only occurred in the spring. At that time, however, the damage remained regionally limited.
But this time it’s different. Tech CEO Nicolas Guillaume said according to “heise.de” that it was the “international dimension” of this attack that distinguished it from previous ones.
Providers can redirect the data packets via alternative cables. However, this creates a higher load and therefore a much slower pace.
Marseille is one of the hubs of international data traffic. The companies Free 1337, Zayo, Cogent, OVHCloud, Zscaler and ISP Netalis are said to be affected.
Not the first problem of this kind
Recently there had been increasing problems with gas and internet lines.
On the Shetland Islands almost all communication collapsed on Thursday. Two cables were damaged in just a few days.
Although the responsible police investigator taps on fishing boats with trawls. But: In January, a Russian cutter allegedly destroyed an Internet line off Norway by crossing the exact spot where the line was damaged more than 30 times.
At the end of September, an incident that top politicians around the world officially classified as an attack caused international outrage: Huge leaks were discovered on the German-Russian Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines.
Russia denied all responsibility. However, intelligence experts believe that Putin had the pipes mined during construction.