Attacks show fiber-optic Internet cables vulnerable
More than a dozen physical attacks on Internet cables seem to be the work of vandals, not terrorists, experts and the FBI suggest.
Criminals have sliced fiber-optic cables that form the Internet’s backbone in California at least 16 times in the past year, federal officials said. The two newest attacks happened Monday night near Livermore, Calif. The FBI is unaware of any similar attacks elsewhere in the country.
“There’s no physical evidence or intelligence to suggest a motive of terrorism,” said Michele Ernst, with the FBI’s San Francisco office. “But we have not established a motive yet, so we are not ruling anything out.”
AT&T is offering a $250,000 reward in connection with the latest attacks. AT&T’s fiber-optic network is legally considered a critical piece of the nation’s Internet infrastructure, and any attack- ers are subject to both state and federal prosecution. The FBI has an open investigation into 14 similar attacks on California Internet backbones since summer.
Livermore, a San Francisco Bay Area suburb, is home to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and many high-tech commuters.
Security expert Richard Doherty of New Yorkbased Envisioneering said it’s unlikely a terrorist or foreign government would make low-level attacks that just inconvenience users.
“If you’re going to do an attack, you find a vulnerability and then shut up about it,” Doherty said Wednesday. He called the cuts a “dis-coordinated” attack.
The high-capacity lines, no thicker than a pencil, carry vast amounts of data, acting as interstates for the information superhighway. But they’re easily severed. “We just don’t do a very good job of protecting our critical infrastructure,” Doherty said. “All of these things are wake-up calls.