Growing cyber threats faced by submarine cables

SecurityWeek reports that cybersecurity threats against submarine cables are on the rise, with state-sponsored threat operations being the foremost threat amid geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China, and China and Taiwan, as well as the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. China has become a formidable threat to submarine cables due to its digital flow control capabilities enabling new intelligence gathering avenues, while Russia poses a physical security threat with its resources to sever undersea cables, according to a report from Recorded Future. Aside from targeting landing stations, state-backed cyber operations could also exploit the increasing remote network management systems to facilitate attacks. "State actors seeking an espionage edge will almost certainly target the entire submarine cable ecosystem for intelligence collection: landing station infrastructure, the submarine cables themselves, third-party providers, and the hardware and software that knits it all together. Separately, Russia will almost certainly increase its overt and covert mapping of submarine cables, and likely engage in targeted sabotage on land and underwater," said Recorded Future.