French police are investigating a sabotage last week to fiber optic cables in its territory, after the one suffered at the end of last April in several fiber optic cables in the country. On this occasion the sabotage has been around the city of Marseillewhere the cables that connect the city with other cities in France and Europe have suffered several cuts, causing problems in connection to the Internet and various telephone services not only in the area, but also in other parts of France and Europe, as well as in other regions of the world.
French cable operator Freeaccording to the Associated Press, has assured that its repair teams were mobilized before dawn last Wednesday, when the problems began, to repair the affected cables, for what they have described as «an act of vandalism on our fiber infrastructure«. The cables were repaired in less than 24 hours.
The attacks appear to have been carried out simultaneously, and at various points, on the fiber optic network near Marseille. The company has assured that the attackers completely cut several cables installed in their boxes, at ground level.
According to Zscaler, the cut cables link Marseille with Milan, Barcelona and the French city of Lyon, and the sabotage «affected major cables with connections to Asia, Europe, the United States, and probably other parts of the world«.
The damage to the cables slowed down some of the network traffic from Europe to India, according to the Zscaler CEO Jay Chaudhrywho also noted that “thanks to Zscaler controlling the network”, they were able to “divert traffic routing, and mitigate the problem» for its users worldwide.
In the April attack, also in France, several fiber optic cables were cut in a manner very similar to that used in Marseille. Then, the Internet service in several regions, both in France and in other nearby countries, and the intervention of urgent repair teams was necessary in the middle of the night. The Paris prosecutor’s office opened a preliminary investigation into the events, and the French Internal Intelligence Service (DGSI) and the judicial police also participated.
So, the investigation was produced by “damage to property of a nature essential to the interests of the nation“, in addition to criminal association and a “obstruction of an automatic data processing system«.
When the sabotage of Marseilles became known, not a few related it to the cutting of a submarine cable in Northern Europe, the SHEFA-2, which left the Shetland Islands of Scotland without connectivity also last Wednesday, although apparently the cut was due to the action of a fishing boat. It was therefore not an act of sabotage, but an accident, according to The Record. This cable links the Faroe and Shetland Islands with Scotland in terms of connectivity. The cable has already been damaged several times by fishing boats, of which the most serious were two cuts produced in 2013 in a few months. https://thesanddollarlv.com/
Photo: Free 1237
