Cables were cut in Aix-en-Provence, near one of the world’s most important hubs. An “act of sabotage” that disrupted part of the planet.
From our correspondent in Marseille, Francois Tonneau
© JOEL SAGET / AFP
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L’information had been revealed on social networks by the operators SFR and Free, who said they were victims, on Wednesday, of an “act of vandalism” on the side of Marseille, on their “infrastructure” fiber. This had caused major disturbances, mainly bandwidth degradations on fixed and mobile telephones. In all, nearly 5,000 breakdowns identified in 24 hours on the Internet accounts of customers came to add to the beginning of panic.
This Friday afternoon, an American publisher of cloud access security platforms, Zscaler, gave additional information. On the night of Monday October 17 to Tuesday October 18, around three o’clock in the morning, a segment of the fiber backbone which carries the Western Internet from northern Europe to Marseille, a strategic global platform for submarine cables, was severed near Aix-en-Provence.
There is little doubt, given the elements we have, that this is sabotage.
Connected to other underwater cables in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, it caused a slowdown in the Internet for a few hours on an international scale. Although the incident did not cause too much disruption, a complaint has been filed and an investigation is underway.
READ ALSOWhy the specter of an underwater attack on the Internet worries
“There is little doubt, given the elements we have, that it is sabotage, something intentional”, specifies a source close to the Grand Port of Marseille, where we find in particular four important Data centers. A chamber containing a quantity of fiber optic cables under the asphalt of a road was obviously forced open, then a sheath protecting these same cables was cut. “There has been no theft at this stage,” we are told.A booming market in Marseille
The leading telecommunications connection node in southern Europe, Marseille, ranked seventh internationally last January, is in the process of interfering in the world’s top 5 digital hubs, through which millions of data are transmitted per hour. Last March, an agreement was signed between a global fiber optic network provider, Cinturion, and the Grand Port of Marseille, to connect the shores of Marseille with Bombay in India, further increasing the digital interdependence between Europe and Asia, nearly 10,000 kilometers away.
Beyond disturbing its users, this malicious act on these networks is detrimental to a booming economic sector, opening up unprecedented development prospects in Marseille for the past ten years. Currently, no fewer than 15 submarine cables connect the city to 43 countries and 4.5 billion mobile users worldwide.