Most Australians would be blissfully unaware that nearly all of our internet traffic (99% of it, to be precise) travels through just 15 submarine cables that snake along the ocean floor.
These fibre-optic arteries underpin not just everyday communication but also banking systems, stock exchanges, cloud services and highly classified information. Over the past 15 months, at least 11 undersea cables in the Baltic Sea have been damaged, with Russia widely suspected as the culprit. China has also been accused of targeting two of Taiwan’s undersea links this year.
Australia is not immune to such threats. In fact, it may be even more exposed.
As Capital Brief reported on Friday, retired Brigadier Ian Langford has raised the alarm over the vulnerability of Australia’s national submarine cable network to sabotage.
