In a nutshell: The world has woken up to the need to secure and diversify our global internet infrastructure. As NATO and its partners work to achieve this goal through Project HEIST, the race is on to stay ahead of potential threats.
On February 18, 2024, a missile attack by Houthi militants in Yemen struck the cargo ship Rubymar in the Red Sea, setting off a chain of events that would expose a critical vulnerability in the world’s internet infrastructure. As the disabled vessel drifted for weeks before finally sinking, its anchor dragged across the seafloor for an estimated 70 kilometers, severing three vital fiber-optic cables that carried approximately a quarter of all internet traffic between Europe and Asia.
This incident served as a stark reminder of the fragility of the world’s submarine fiber-optic network, which carries more than 95% of intercontinental internet communications. “They’re not buried when they cross an ocean,” Tim Stronge, vice president of research at TeleGeography, told IEEE. “They’re sitting right on the seafloor, and at oceanic depths, at deep-sea depths, they’re about this thick” – he gestures, forming a circle with his fingers – “less than a garden hose. They’re fragile.”
The global undersea cable network, spanning approximately 1.2 million kilometers, consists of 500 to 600 cables that form the backbone of our digital world. These cables are crucial for more than just casual internet browsing; they facilitate an estimated $10 trillion in daily financial transactions and carry encrypted defense communications.
In response to this vulnerability, NATO has launched a pilot project called HEIST (Hybrid Space-Submarine Architecture Ensuring Infosec of Telecommunications). The project aims to develop strategies to protect global internet traffic and create alternative pathways when disruptions occur.
HEIST’s objectives for the coming years include developing systems to quickly locate cable breaks with 1-meter accuracy and exploring ways to divert high-priority traffic to satellites. “The name of the game when it comes to enabling resilient communication is path diversity. Something in the sky rather than [just] what’s on the seabed,” said Gregory Falco, NATO Country Director for HEIST and an assistant professor at Cornell University.
The project will begin testing at the Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH) in Karlskrona, Sweden, in 2025.
The project is urgently needed, said Henric Johnson, who serves as the vice-chancellor of BTH and coordinates the HEIST testbed initiative, pointing to recent real-world incidents of sabotage targeting undersea cables connecting Sweden, Estonia, and Finland. “What we’re talking about now is critical infrastructure in the society,” he said.
While satellite links offer a potential backup solution, they face significant limitations in terms of data throughput. Current fiber-optic cables can handle up to 340 terabits per second, far outpacing the 5 gigabits per second typically achievable via satellite communications in the Ku band.
To address this disparity, the HEIST team plans to explore higher-bandwidth laser optical systems for satellite communication. NASA’s recent experiments with optical communications have shown promising results, demonstrating the potential to carry at least 40 times more data than traditional radio transmissions.
However, laser transmissions are not without their challenges. They can be easily disrupted by atmospheric conditions such as clouds, haze, or smoke, and require precise aiming. Additionally, signal latency remains a concern, particularly for satellites in higher orbits.
As HEIST progresses, the team is taking an open-source approach, inviting scrutiny and feedback from the broader scientific community. “We’re going to make it super-public, and we’re going to want people to poke a lot of holes in it,” Falco said. “We’re going to enable this capability faster than anyone would have believed.”