Global Crisis Watch 372 & 373 – Cyber-Physical Vulnerabilities in Critical Infrastructure

Modern societies depend on digital connectivity for commerce, communication, healthcare and government services. At the heart of this connectivity lie undersea fibre-optic cables, which carry the majority of international internet traffic and link continents. Despite their critical role, these physical networks are often vulnerable to both accidental damage and deliberate attacks, creating significant cyber- physical risks. Recent disruptions to major submarine cables illustrate how localized incidents can impact global digital infrastructure, affecting cloud computing, content delivery and everyday internet use.

In September 2025, Microsoft Azure cloud services faced delays due to cuts in undersea cables in the Red Sea, affecting traffic through the Middle East and impacting countries including India, Pakistan and the UAE. Microsoft rerouted traffic through alternative paths, but this event highlighted the strategic importance of these cables linking Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Accidental damage, such as from ship anchors, and potential deliberate attacks—as seen in past incidents like the multiple Red Sea cable cuts in 2024 and the suspected sabotage of cables in the Baltic Sea—highlight the geopolitical dimension of cyber-physical risks.

A similar incident occurred earlier, in June 2025, when the West Africa Cable System (WACS), a 14,530 km fibre-optic link connecting South Africa to Europe, experienced an outage due to a faulty branching unit near Namibia. Internet traffic in affected regions, particularly the Western Cape, slowed as providers rerouted data through alternative cables. Repairing WACS involved specialized ships, remotely operated vehicles and precise splicing operations, demonstrating the complexity and resource intensity of maintaining undersea networks. Even minor infrastructure failures can increase delay, disrupt services and create regional imbalances in connectivity.

These incidents reveal key vulnerabilities: critical infrastructure is often concentrated in specific locations, operational or maintenance issues can disrupt global functionality and repairs are constrained by environmental and logistical factors. They emphasize the need for redundancy, resilient network design and coordinated risk management strategies across nations and providers.

By studying disruptions like the Red Sea and WACS outages, stakeholders can better understand the fragile links between physical infrastructure and global digital systems. Protecting these networks is essential to ensuring reliable connectivity, supporting economic activity and mitigating cascading cyber-physical risks.

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