Governments Urge Improved Security and Resilience for Undersea Cables

The US government and global partners have urged action to strengthen the security and resiliency of undersea cable infrastructure, thereby protecting global communications and data from compromise.

This includes incorporating cybersecurity best practices in the design of undersea cable infrastructure, reducing the risk of these services being hacked.  

The joint statement, endorsed by the US, UK, Canada, France, the EU and numerous other countries, warned of the national security risks posed by growing dependency on communication technologies, and in particular the undersea cables that enable the transmission of vast volumes of data.

The statement highlighted the vast undersea cable infrastructure that needs protecting, necessitating a global strategy.

Alongside the communication cables themselves, the strategy includes elements related to their construction, operation, surveillance, maintenance and repair, such as landing stations, software, and the terrestrial parts of the undersea cable connecting to them.

“Protecting the security, resilience, and integrity of undersea cables is critical to global communications, economic growth, and development. Managing security risks, including from high-risk suppliers of undersea cable equipment and promoting best security practices for laying and maintaining these cables for secure and resilient global infrastructure is essential for the networks upon which the global economy relies,” the statement read.

The call was made during the 79th annual United National General Assembly.

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Rising geopolitical tensions, including the Russia-Ukraine conflict, China’s coercive actions towards Taiwan and growing tensions between the US and China, have heightened the risk of undersea cables being targets for sabotage and espionage purposes. Such interference could potentially cause huge global internet disruption.

Ensuring the Security of Undersea Cables

The statement urged nation states to adopt a range of principles for a shared global approach to ensure the security reliability, interoperability, sustainability, and resiliency for the deployment, repair and maintenance of undersea cable infrastructure. These include:

• Designing undersea cable infrastructure with secure-by-design principles, including incorporating cybersecurity best practices that safely facilitate international communication
• Promote data risk mitigation frameworks and data security measures to protect cable networks from unauthorized access to data in transit or storage for dual purposes
• Advance cooperation to promote the selection of secure and verifiable subsea cable providers for new cable projects, including enhancing route diversity
• Seek closer government and industry coordination for supporting responsible undersea cable deployment, maintenance, and repair
• Share best practices for permitting and regulation to support international cable systems and supporting services and capabilities
• Conduct regular security risk assessments regularly across the cable lifecycle, accounting for technical and non-technical factors