What lies beneath: the growing threat to the hidden network of cables that power the internet

Almost all internet traffic—including Zoom calls, movie streams, emails and social media feeds—reach us via high speed fibre optics laid on the ocean floor. These are the veins of the modern world, stretching almost 1.5 million km under the sea, connecting countries via physical cables which funnel the internet through them. That the data that powers financial, government, and some military communications is traversing cables not much thicker than a hose pipe and protected by little more than the seawater above them, has in recent years become a cause of concern for lawmakers across the world. The targeting of internet cables is a weapon that Russia has long held in its arsenal of hybrid warfare.