The headlines say Russia’s shadow fleet is cutting cables. The experts say most faults come from clumsy ship anchors. Ninety-nine percent of global internet traffic runs across the ocean floor, and the conversation about what threatens it is mostly wrong.

In this episode of Threat Talks, Peter van Burgel, CEO of AMS-IX, sits down with Ernst Noorman, Cyber Ambassador at Large for the Netherlands and member of the ITU Advisory Board on Submarine Cable Resilience, to separate geopolitical noise from engineering reality, and explain what actually puts global internet connectivity at risk.

Timestamps

00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:55 The ITU Advisory Board on Submarine Cable Resilience
00:05:04 Shadow Fleets, Geopolitics, and the Sabotage Myth
00:10:30 Shunts, Faults, and What Actually Breaks Cables
00:15:47 Why Satellite Cannot Replace Submarine Cables
00:17:06 Digital Sovereignty and the Big Tech Cable Takeover
00:28:16 What Every CEO Should Put on the Agenda

Key Topics Covered

• Why most submarine cable faults come from anchors, fishing nets, and natural events, not state actors

• How aging repair ships and bureaucratic permitting barriers make restoration slow in most of the world

• Why satellite (including Starlink) cannot replace subsea fiber at any meaningful scale

• How big tech dominance over new cable investment creates digital sovereignty risks for governments and large organizations

• What NIS2 means for CEO accountability on digital infrastructure resilience

Related ON2IT Content & Referenced Resources

ITU Advisory Board on Submarine Cable Resilience: https://www.itu.int/digital-resilience/submarine-cables/advisory-body/
ICPC (International Cable Protection Committee): https://www.iscpc.org
Dutch Cybersecurity Council / CEO manual on NIS2: https://www.cybersecuritycouncil.nl
Dutch Cybersecurity Act (NIS2 implementation): https://www.dutchncca.nl/the-cybersecurity-act

Threat Talks: https://threat-talks.com/russia-cutting-cables-whos-protecting-it/
ON2IT (Zero Trust as a Service): https://on2it.net
AMS-IX: https://www.ams-ix.net/ams

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