Global Internet at Risk: The Houthis and Undersea Cable Attacks

Key things to Know:

• Rising Tensions and Undersea Cable Damage: The article discusses the recent damage to undersea internet cables between Europe and Asia, potentially caused by Houthi rebels in Yemen, highlighting the strategic importance of these cables for global connectivity.
• Vulnerability of Undersea Cables: It explores why undersea cables are particularly susceptible to attacks, including the challenges of monitoring and protecting these crucial pieces of infrastructure located at the bottom of the sea.
• Defensive Measures: The piece examines potential strategies for defending undersea cables against future attacks, such as utilising undersea proximity sensors and other innovative technologies.
• Global Impact and Defense Innovations: Emphasizes the global implications of damaging such cables and the urgent need for innovative solutions in underwater defence technologies to safeguard this essential infrastructure.

As tensions in the Middle East continue to rise, internet cables between Europe and Asia have been damaged in a supposed attack by the Houthi rebels in Yemen. Are the Houthis to blame for this attack, why are underwater cables so vulnerable to attack, and what can be done to defend them going forward?

Undersea cables were damaged, but was it the Houthis?

While it may not seem so, in all of human history, the world has never known the degree of peace that is currently being witnessed. Of course, when looking at the news, you may wonder how that can be the case with the Ukraine war, the war in Gaza, and the situation near Yemen. 

However, when considering the number of lives lost, the degree of damage done, and the scale of the fighting, it turns out to be far smaller than the media reports. That isn’t to say that what is happening around the world isn’t horrendous, but it should be noted that the scale and size of devastation the world is seeing is small compared to the past several hundred years of world wars, disease, and struggle.

However, while the war in Ukraine and the war in Gaza have mostly remained isolated, the situation in Yemen is anything but localised. Despite Houthi rebels being thousands of miles away from our daily lives, their direction actions are affecting large proportions of the globe, and it all comes down to a tiny stretch of water that separates the West and the East: the Bab-el-Mandeb.

Also known as the Gate of Tears, the stretch of water that lies between Africa and Yemen is used by thousands of ships worldwide due to it being the only access point to the Suez Canal. Without the Suez Canal, ships would have to go around the entire African continent, which not only makes journeys much longer, but consumes more fuel too. 

Now, the Houthis themselves are no threat to nations such as the UK and US with regards to military power, but because boats have to pass Yemen extremely closely, the Houthis are a major threat to world trade relying on the strait. Having already fired numerous rockets, and even damaging some ships, the Houthi’s have managed to redirect many boats, impacting global trade.

But this site is electropages, so what does any of this have to do with electronics? Well, it turns out that due to the narrow width of this strait, the waters are ideal for laying undersea internet cables for connecting the West to the East.

Unfortunately, the Houthi rebels recognised the importance of internet connectivity and actively threatened to damage these cables. Lo and behold, only a mere few weeks after these threats, a number of cables that are under threat have been damaged, according to their operators. 

Thankfully, as such cables come in bundles with spares, internet providers have managed to reroute traffic, but this has many wondering if it really was the Houthis that damaged these cables. If the Houthis really did attack the cables, it would demonstrate just how easy it is for even the simplest organisations to cause havoc to infrastructure.

However, there are those that doubt the involvement of the Houthi’s. As such cables are extremely deep, it would require expert divers and equipment to not only get to the bottom, but locate the cables and then cut them. Thus, those that doubt the Houthi’s involvement believe that the cables could have been damaged by their allies, Iran, but even then, it is not generally believed that they also have access to such diving capabilities. 

Instead, some believe that if the Houthis really were responsible, then it would likely be at connection points on the land or in shallow water. If this is the case, then it would at least demonstrate that the undersea cables are themselves safe from terrorism. 

Why are undersea cables so vulnerable to attack?

This is not the first time we have seen undersea infrastructure supposedly attacked. For example, it was believed that Russia was responsible for the damage to the NordStream undersea pipe in retaliation to Europe’s attitude towards Russia after the Ukraine invasion. It was also believed that Russian ships were scouting the shores of the UK, trying to identify where critical undersea cables were located so that during the event of a war, they could sever crucial electric and internet connections. 

But what exactly is it about undersea cables that make them so vulnerable to attack? Well, to start, unlike typical infrastructure that is located above ground, it is very hard to monitor and protect such cables. Being at the bottom of the sea, it is by no mean practical to walk along the length of such cables on a daily basis to look for suspicious activity.

Due to the extreme depth of many cables, installing equipment to monitor cables is simply out of the question. As radio waves cannot penetrate water well, using RADAR to search for intrusion is never going to work, and using SONAR simply gives the position of the cable away. 

Even if an intruder was detected, sending a response team to engage would be anything but plausible. As most submarines used by the military do not go beyond 250 meters, specialist crafts would need to be used, and if these go wrong, then one only needs to look at OceanGate to know what happens next.

Trying to prevent an attack before it occurs is also problematic, as something as simple as an anchor can sever cables, and trying to watch ships for anchor dropping would be too difficult. Making matters worse, areas with cables cannot be protected by coast guards or the navy as that would result in an invisible wall that no ship could ever cross, effectively cutting the ocean in half. 

What can be done to defend undersea cables against attacks?

When it comes to defending undersea cables there are not many options available, and considering that these cables are vital for modern infrastructure, that sets a very unnerving precedence. 

One possible solution is to utilise undersea proximity sensors that are based either on acoustics, magnetism, or active sonar. Operating in a similar manner to sea mines, such hardware could help produce alerts to the Coast Guard and Navy when a detection has been made. 

Even though a response team will unlikely be able to respond, other means of defence may be viable. For example, for cables close to the shoreline, electronic warfare systems could be used to try and disrupt electronic systems used on submersibles. By incorporating a swarm of underwater drones powered by AI, they could try and seek any sources of light, heat, radio, and sound and then attach themselves to the target while delivering massive RF and EM energies.

Considering that such submersibles would be dependent on surface craft, swarms of airborne drones could try to find such ships and rapidly scale the length of the cable from a low altitude. Of course, this is dependent on whether the submersible attempting to damage the cable does indeed need a mothership. 

Overall, undersea cables provide essential infrastructure to our lives, and their defence is imperative. However, being at the bottom of the ocean, they are incredibly hard to defend. However, as one door closes, another one opens, and this could present a massive opportunity for engineers looking to explore new ideas in the field of submersibles and underwater defence technologies.