Egypt Makes Arrests After Undersea Internet Cable Hacked Apart

Three scuba divers off the coast of Egypt have been arrested, after they were allegedly caught cutting an undersea cable used to connect citizens to the global Internet.

It is believed they were spotted by police on a fishing boat close to the port city of Alexandria, attempting to hack away at an undersea cable run by Telecom Egypt, according to the Associated Press.

Egypt cable cut

Military spokesman Colonel Ahmed Mohammed Ali made the announcement yesterday, but few other details have emerged.

Egyptian Internet services have been disrupted over the past week, but that was largely down to a ship that had damaged one of the undersea cables.

Telecom Egypt executive manager Mohammed el Nawawi told TV channel CBC the network would be restored on Thursday.

Cut cables can cause slowdowns to the global Internet. As all networks rely on other networks to make the Internet work, so when one significant piece of infrastructure is taken out, it can impact other parts of the Web.

Just yesterday, there were claims a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack had caused the Internet to slow down, although in reality, just a handful of organisations were hit and no significant sluggishness was seen.

Are you a security expert? Try our quiz!

Thomas Brewster

Tom Brewster is TechWeek Europe's Security Correspondent. He has also been named BT Information Security Journalist of the Year in 2012 and 2013.

Recent Posts

Ericsson To Cut 1,200 Jobs in Sweden Amid ‘Challenging’ Market

Swedish telecoms giant Ericsson blamed “challenging mobile networks market” and “further volume contraction” for job…

20 hours ago

FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced To 25 Years In Prison For $8bn Fraud

Dramatic downfall. Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison for masterminding $8bn fraud that…

21 hours ago

Elon Musk Orders FSD Demo For Every Tesla US Sale

Fallout avoidance? Tesla buyers in the US must be shown how to use the FSD…

22 hours ago

Amazon Pumps Another $2.75 Billion Into Anthropic

Amazon completes its $4bn investment into AI firm Anthropic, after providing an additional $2.75bn in…

23 hours ago

The Sustainability of AI

While AI promises unparalleled efficiency, productivity, and innovation, questions regarding its environmental impact loom large.…

1 day ago