NATO supports a project aimed at securing the internet's work against attacks

The NATO contributes to the financing of a project aimed at finding solutions to maintain the work of the Internet in the case of marine cables transporting European civil and military maritime communication after an attack. Researchers, including academics from the United States, Iceland, Sweden and Switzerland, want to develop a system that enables the smooth direction of the Internet movement from marine cables to satellite systems in the event of a sabotage or a natural disaster. The Science for Peace and Security program of NATO approved an award of up to $ 400 thousand euros ($ 433.600) for the $ 2.5 million project, with research institutions submitting a good contributions, according to documents seen by “Bloomberg”. Ayoub Contewy Tormos, a consultant and director of the NATO program, confirmed that the project was recently approved, and he explained via email that the implementation ‘will start’ soon ‘. This initiative, which has not yet been exposed in public, comes amid increasing concern that Russia or China is attacking, cutting or manipulating in a different way, in an effort to disrupt communication during military conflicts. Data transferred over marine cables represents about $ 10 trillion daily financial transactions, knowing that NATO Internet traffic is almost going through these cables, according to the North Atlantic organization. Intensive attempts to protect cables have strengthened its efforts to protect cables over the past few months. Last year, he also set up a center to coordinate best practices to protect maritime infrastructure, following the September 2022 explosion that destroyed the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. This recent research effort, which is expected to be officially launched later this month at a symposium at the University of Cornell in New York, focuses on the development of ways to discover disorders in the cables, and then automate operations to redirect the domain of satellites (or perhaps other marine cables) to redirect data. According to the project officials and the documents seen by ‘Bloomberg’, the researchers will test two years in the initial models and explore systems before creating an effective operating system. The project is expected to eventually include commercial and government partners. Hans Liwan, an assistant professor of defense systems at the Swedish University of Defense and one of the general managers participating in the project, said in an interview that he proposed a system that could target sensitive data, even if it was a provident procedure. He made it clear that it makes sense to develop an automatic backup system in space; Due to the increasing threats of important infrastructure under the sea. The risks between the cables that are unintentionally cut by the Marinacle that is withdrawn along the seabed to effect deliberate sabotage, which includes that Sweden describes in October last year as ‘deliberate’ damage to the cable that linked Estonia and Sweden. Gregory Falco, a spacecraft engineer at Cornell University and another co -director of the project known as’ space engineer and hybrid diving boats to ensure the security of communication information, said: “We are confident in our ability to make it by giving it through enough time,” Gregory Falco said. Project details, Falco explained that the project is technically complicated depends on an international “very intertwined” law and that it will require a lot of legal coordination. The Swedish Navy and the Icelandic Government are one of those interested in using the system developed by researchers in the project “Space engineering and hybrid diving boats to ensure the safety of communication information”, according to documents that “Bloomberg” saw. “You need three or four bombs to cut contacts in Iceland,” said Pierny Mar Magnuson, a legal professor at Beverost university in Iceland, who will also work on the project. The Swedish naval representatives or the Icelandic government did not comment on the case. The US satellite business “Viasat”, Sierra Space and the Icelandic cyber security company “Syndis” also participate in this effort, according to the documents. The United States and its allies have publicly blamed Russia for a penetration of an impact on more than 45,000 signals belonging to ‘Fias’ around Europe, and disrupted the Ukrainian military communication on the eve of the war in 2022. Teodore Gisslson, head of the Innovation section in Sindis, expressed his aspiration to use the results of the NATO project to defend the potential Cable attack. The representative of “Sierra Space” did not comment on the matter. Craig Miller, head of Global Space Networks at “Fias”, said in a statement that the company believes that the combination of marine and satellite infrastructure “is essential to protect global communication and to ensure safe data transport for the sensitive information.” As part of the project, “fias” aims to design satellite communication techniques and visual cables that can be traced in real time, if marine fiber connections are disrupted, Miller said. Researchers also investigate ways to monitor threats to marine cables more effectively to determine when to redirect the Internet. According to Falco, marine cable network operators can discover disturbances in the cable at the nearest kilometer, but the project aims to reduce it to the nearest meter. According to Henrik Johnson, professor of computer science at the Bucking Institute of Technology in Sweden, the project will be partially undergoing in a high -voltage cable test environment near the largest naval base in Sweden, which follows the maritime war’s escalation, and also to the “Space Engineering and Hybrid Submarines project to ensure the security of communication.”