Researchers from the U.S., Iceland, Sweden, and Switzerland are working with NATO to build a system that will automatically reroute subsea internet and data traffic to satellites if communication is severed by hostile action, natural calamity, or an accident. According to Bloomberg’s report, most of NATO’s internet traffic uses undersea cables, and their disruption could result in a disaster, especially during the opening days of any attack.
NATO has already been investing in protecting its communications cables, setting up a center that focuses on this mission ever since the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was destroyed by a mysterious explosion in September 2022. NATO’s Science for Peace and Security Programme also allocated over $400,000 to the Hybrid Space and Submarine Architecture project to Ensure Information Security of Telecommunications, or HEIST. It will formally launch at Cornell University in New York in late July 2024.
This project comes at a time when global stability is affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s threat to Taiwan, and its provocative and violent actions in Southeast and East Asia. NATO leaders say that Russia is mapping critical US and EU assets, and they fear that undersea cables will be among the first targets during a military crisis.
HEIST’s primary focus is to detect disturbances in undersea cables and automate the rerouting of the data through them to other cables or via satellite if any issues are encountered. Currently, undersea cable companies can detect disturbances to their underwater infrastructure to the nearest kilometer, but the researchers want to narrow this down to the nearest meter.
This system will ensure that communications will not be disrupted even if any of Europe’s subsea communications cables are cut, damaged, or moved. HEIST is also not limited to military applications, as undersea cables could also be affected by natural and artificial events, like earthquakes or wayward ship anchors.
However, NATO’s primary concern is still the integrity of its internal communications. “You would need three or four bombs to just cut off Iceland and its communications,” said Professor Bjarni Már Magnússon, who teaches law at Iceland’s Bifröst University and is also a part of the HEIST project. We could also remember how thousands of Viasat modems were disabled across Europe when Russian state actors hacked them as part of its coordinated effort during its initial push into Ukraine in February 2022. HEIST will help ensure that even if one or another communications cable is compromised, NATO could still function and be able to coordinate its actions.
Aside from protecting the reliability of its communications, NATO should also be worried about the security and integrity of these undersea cables. After all, if the U.S. could tap into the U.S.S.R.’s underwater communication lines during the 1970s with Operation Ivy Bells, then the Russians could do the same today. Even though the messages sent through these cables are usually secured and encrypted, quantum computers could threaten even the most advanced encryption.
