NATO is financing a program to provide automatic satellite-based connectivity in the wake of subsea cable issues in Europe.
Bloomberg reports that NATO will support the project through its Science for Peace and Security Programme (SPS) with a grant of $433,600 for the $2.5 million program. The aim of the researchers – who include academics from the US, Iceland, Sweden and Switzerland – is to look for a way to seamlessly reroute Internet traffic from subsea cables to satellites, in the event of natural disasters or sabotage.
Though not officially announced yet, Eyup Kuntay Turmus, adviser and program manager at the NATO program, confirmed to Bloomberg the project was recently approved and said by email that implementation will start “very soon.” The initiative comes amid fears that Russia or China could tamper with undersea cables in an attempt to disrupt communications during a military crisis.
Protecting undersea infrastructure
The vast majority of damage to subsea fiber cables is caused by fishing activity, while outages can also be caused by natural events. Data carried through subsea cables account for roughly $10 trillion worth of financial transactions every day. According to NATO, nearly all of the their internet traffic also travels through them. Last year, the organisation established a center to coordinate best practices for protecting undersea infrastructure in the wake of a September 2022 explosion that destroyed the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Lt. Gen. Hans-Werner Wiermann, the then head of NATO's Critical Undersea Infrastructure Coordination Cell, spoke at Datacenter Forum Helsinki last year:
Project HEIST
The project is called HEIST – Hybrid Space and Submarine Architecture to Ensure Information Security of Telecommunications – and will develop tools to detect disturbances on cables down to the nearest meter. The system will then automatically reroute data via satellite. For the first two years, HEIST will test prototypes and navigating regulations. It will be partially run at an underwater testing site with high-voltage cables near the city of Karlskrona, Sweden’s largest naval base. Satellite firm Viasat is said to be involved in the project, as are Sierra Space and security firm Syndis.
Though they didn't confirm it, the Swedish Navy and Icelandic government are among those interested in using the system developed by HEIST, according to documents seen by Bloomberg. “You would need three or four bombs to just cut off Iceland and its communications,” said Bjarni Már Magnússon, a law professor at Bifröst University in Iceland who will also work on the project.
