An exercise conducted next January that simulates broken submarine cables
Guðmundur Arnar Sigmundsson, director of the CERT-IS network security team of the Telecommunications Agency, says that the exercise will be held in January. Composite image
The Cyber Security Team of the Telecommunications Agency will, together with the Civil Defense, hold an exercise early next year, simulating the situation that could arise if all three submarine cables connecting Iceland to Europe are cut.
Guðmundur Arnar Sigmundsson, director of CERT-IS, the cybersecurity agency of the Icelandic Telecommunications Agency, says that there has been a call for information on whether submarines have been seen near Icelandic submarine cables, which lead to Ireland, Scotland, and Denmark. That information is with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and mbl.is has sent an inquiry to that effect.
He says people are paying close attention to issues related to two broken submarine cables, one between Finland and Germany and the other between Sweden and Lithuania. Recently, Boris Pistorius, the Minister of Defense of Germany, declared that it is clear that they are due to acts of sabotage.
Farice owns and operates submarine cables between Iceland and Europe. Here you can see two of the three submarine cables.
Would take weeks and months to repair
"The cables to Iceland lie in the very deep sea in parts. If they all broke at once, we'd be looking at a repair that would take weeks and months. At that time, we would have to rely on very limited, prioritized bandwidth via satellite," Sigmundsson says.
He says that the government considers the scenario to be unlikely, but at the same time extremely fatal if it were to occur.
Check if it will be possible to maintain an internet connection
"We will therefore hold a large exercise where we simulate this situation. The first phase of this exercise will take place at the end of January next year. The exercise involves getting answers to whether we will be able to maintain a national Internet connection if all the cables are cut. The answer to that is yes, we should have that technology. But the Internet alone is not enough because people use the Internet to download content which in many cases is hosted abroad."
He says that an example of this topic is the website island.is and payment systems to name a few. They are hosted abroad. Also, a service that protects against the possibility of an attack on a web system by having too many people connect to it at once.
The goal of the exercise is to maintain a network connection if all cables are lost. Photo/Colourbox
The exercise will be conducted in many phases
He says that in the exercise it will be simulated if a satellite connection will be used and staff will be trained in the necessary technology. "And then how to maximize the quality of a poor Internet connection." That's what this exercise is all about. It will be done in many phases over many months, and the first phase will begin at the end of January in collaboration with the civil defense."
People are calmer with the introduction of the third cable
According to him, it would have little effect if one or two cables broke. However, it would be extremely bad if three cables were to break.
Sigmundsson says that people in the administration are calmer after the third submarine cable was commissioned last year. It leads to Ireland and is technically better than the other cables.
"You feel better about it after the introduction of that cable. And it should be noted that we have no reason to believe that our cables will break."
According to Sigmundsson, CERT-IS has no information about submarine trips to the ropes. It is the responsibility of the Coast Guard to ensure the safety of the cables.
