AFP Investigates Suspected Sabotage of Two Perth Undersea Internet Cables

Subco detects simultaneous hardware faults on two critical Australian undersea internet cables. The Indigo-West and Indigo-Central systems suffered electrical short circuits inside a protected marine zone extending 51 nautical miles from shore at depths of over 6,500 feet. Deliberate sabotage remains strictly unconfirmed, but Subco hasn't ruled it out after tracking a suspicious marine vessel that the faults occurred directly underneath of. The Australian Federal Police is actively investigating a formal report of a crime regarding the infrastructure failure. This physical disruption exposes a massive structural bottleneck, given just 16 undersea cables currently carry 99% of all Australian internet traffic. "This is a concerning development. Partially because submarine cables are the digital lifeblood of our nation, but also because this could very well turn out to be the second such incidence in a Federally declared cable protection zone." — Bevan Slattery Relying on a handful of fragile underwater fiber lines to route an entire continent's digital economy is a glaring single point of failure that gray-zone actors are inevitably going to test.