Subsea cables are a critical and expanding part of national infrastructure, but as identified by the UK’s Joint Committee on National Security Strategy (JCNSS) face threats that could catastrophically disrupt economies. Where subsea cables transmit data and energy through international waters, they are woefully underserved for the monitoring and deterrence of threats.
Our co-founder, Chris Minto, shares his thoughts on the report, to highlight how commercial data streams used to detect cable exposure and fatigue can be repurposed to monitor for deliberate interference in the interests of security, but Unclos regulation on monitoring cables in international waters are out of step with the technology and the threats faced. Governments need to work together and with cable operators to close these regulatory gaps to secure critical subsea infrastructure.
In September, the UK’s Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy (JCNSS) released its final report on the vulnerability of the UK’s undersea cable network, with the refreshingly forthright title: “UK too timid in defending vulnerable undersea cables from attack”.
Having submitted written evidence to the committee earlier this year, it is pleasing to see the threat being taken seriously in a comprehensive report covering
the UK’s over reliance on capacity redundancy (the UK has multiple cables existing in concentrated clusters); a lack of incentives for commercial operators to protect against rare unforecastable security events and the significant knock-on effects of an attack; and the urgent need for more deterrence and integrated monitoring systems.
For all its strengths however, the report’s focus creates a critical blind spot.
Power cables are crucial
While the committee’s report focuses on telecommunications cables, the threats, solutions and barriers to action are also applicable to subsea power infrastructure. The UK’s subsea power cable infrastructure is growing exponentially, with offshore wind capacity set to quadruple by 2030 and subsea interconnectors increasingly being deployed to Europe and around the UK.
The threat posed by a reliance on subsea power cables is significantly greater for power cables than data cables for the simple reason that data can be re-routed whereas power cannot.
Subsea power cable repairs can take up to six months. A targeted attack on multiple power cables that triggered a grid crash requiring a “black start” situation would be catastrophic. The omission of power cable infrastructure from the JCNSS report is problematic.
Solving “Who Pays?”
The committee notes there is “No incentive for operators to take on this extra cost for a crisis that may never come”, correctly identifying a central dilemma in protecting subsea cable infrastructure.
The “who pays?” question is the biggest barrier to a scalable security solution.
While the JCNSS report calls for “New integrated monitoring and alert systems”, sensors for this are already in place in most cables – what’s needed is a new economic model of sensing.
Nearly every modern subsea cable contains unused fibre-optic strands. Technologies like Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS) and Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS), can turn these fibres into sophisticated, continuous sensors along the cable’s entire length.
Using this technology to deliver multiple products from a single data stream answers the question “who pays?”.
Asset owners are incentivised to monitor cable health to prevent costly failures and maximise revenue. The same data stream used to detect cable exposure, scour, or fatigue can be repurposed and securely supplied to government bodies to monitor for security threats, such as anchor drags or deliberate interference.
In this way the essential cable health monitoring services of commercial operators are repurposed to provide security monitoring across a critical network at marginal extra cost.
Bringing light to the debate
A “monitor everything” attitude faces two hurdles: outdated legislation and technical misperceptions.
As the JCNSS report notes, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) prevents sensing in international maritime boundaries, creating a dangerous monitoring gap for critical international interconnectors that needs to be addressed at a policy level.
Compounding the problem is a growing fear of sensing technology, which has led to a misunderstanding that the US has banned DAS technology. This is a misinterpretation of the FCC’s Undersea Cables Act passed in August, which aims to prevent Chinese and Russian-owned technologies and entities from being used in US subsea cables.
Collaboration is needed across industry, government, and the military to use these systems responsibly, understand their limitations and ensure data is handled appropriately.
We strongly support the findings in the JCNSS report, but recommend:
- Including power cables in future security consultations.
- Repurposing data streams in new commercial models that solve the “who pays?” dilemma.
- Updating international law to close monitoring gaps.
The robust sensing technology needed to protect subsea cables exists today. We should not be “too timid” to overcome the obstacles to its use and secure critical subsea infrastructure.
