Russian aggression continues to pose a threat to a massive series of undersea cables that carry worldwide Internet communications, according to a leading senator who received a top-secret classified briefing on the matter on Wednesday.
Russian subs and spyships have been caught “aggressively operating” near these cables in the last month, prompting concern among lawmakers and others who have warned that Moscow could easily sever these cables and toss large portions of America and other nations off the web.
…
“Undersea cables are critical to our economy, our communications, and our national security,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.) said in a statement following the briefing.
“The United States needs to take seriously the growing Russian threat to these cables,” said Wicker, who serves as chairman of the Senate’s Seapower Subcommittee and chair of its subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet.
Reports from intelligence officials indicate that “the ultimate Russian hack on the United States could involve severing the fiber-optic cables at some of their hardest-to-access locations to halt the instant communications on which the West’s governments, economies and citizens have grown dependent,” the New York Times reported in October.
Full article: Top Secret Brief: Russian Threat to Undersea Cables Growing (Washington Free Beacon)
Global Geopolitics 