Nearly a quarter of internet traffic between Asia, Europe and the Middle East is currently disrupted after the rupture of several submarine cables in the Red Sea. Washington accuses the Houthi rebels, a faction supported by Iran, of being behind this destruction.
In a context of ever-increasing tensions in the Red Sea, the abuses of the Houthi rebels have caused exceptional disruptions to internet traffic to Asia, Europe and the Middle East. According to our colleagues from the cysecurity.news site, the rupture of several submarine cables has hampered approximately 25% of internet traffic to these regions of the globe.
Washington blames Houthi rebels
According to Washington, the destruction of these cables would be a direct consequence of the attack on the Rubymar’s anchor in mid-February 2024 by Houthi rebels. As a reminder, this faction supported by Iran has increased hostile actions in this region, particularly since the start of the war between Israel and Palestine.
This group notably attacked several merchant ships which were circulating in this area. We remember, for example, the spectacular takeover of a cargo ship belonging to an Israeli businessman in November 2023. This situation has forced many companies to bypass the Red Sea, notably via South Africa, which fatally impacted supply chains. This is why Tesla, for example, stopped production at the Berlin Gigafactory for a few days. Volvo also made a similar decision at its Belgian factory in Ghent.
For his part, Houthi rebel leader Abdel Malek al-Houthi denied these allegations, blaming the British and American armed forces active in the region. While waiting to find the culprit, four major telecommunications networks, including HGC Global Communications (Hong Kong), have confirmed that cables have been cut and are currently working to reroute traffic and provide assistance to businesses affected by these disruptions.
Repairs are still pending
According to Seacom, a telecoms company based in Africa and owner of certain targeted cables, repairs cannot begin for at least a month, partly due to delays in obtaining operating permits in the region. Among the networks concerned, we find in particular the Asia-Africa-Europe 1 infrastructures, a 25,000 km cable system linking South-East Asia to the Old Continent via Egypt. The Europe India Gateway network also suffered damage.
According to certain specialists, this unprecedented situation could be the origin of the outages reported on Meta and Google services at the beginning of the week. But this remains to be proven for now. Regardless, this event highlights the vulnerability of our interconnected global communications infrastructure.