Backbone Internet companies sent their emergency response crews to restore service in California's Bay Area. The internet was off for many customers after three fiber-optic cables were deliberately cut on early Tuesday, June 30 morning.
An internet service provider declared that this seems to be a coordinated attack. Wave Broadband informed that the fiber optic internet cables were physically severed Tuesday morning, around 4:20 a.m. The internet cables belong to Zayo Group Holdings Inc. and Level 3 Communications, Wave Broadband being a customer of the two.
Wave and other local Internet service providers rent backbone cables in order to provide broadband internet to business and consumer clients. In the latest attack on the cables, not only the Sacramento customers lost service but customers as far as Seattle were also affected. Zayo and Level 3 Communications were able to repair their cables late Tuesday. The internet service providers in California's Bay area could resume their Internet connections only shortly before midnight.
According to Greg Wuthrich, special FBI agent for the San Francisco division, The Federal Bureau of Investigation is getting through the latest incident in a string of fiber cable cuts over the last year in the San Francisco Bay area. The FBI agents are also searching for the suspect behind this ruthless act of vandalism. The latest incident has raised the number of attacks on internet lines in San Francisco area to 11 in just one year.
The latest cable cut took place about 40 miles east of San Francisco, in Livermore. The disruption of Wave Broadband internet service was confined only to several suburban areas of Sacramento, California. FBI agents declared that those who cut the internet lines have special equipment and tools necessary to enter underground cable vaults and go through the protective conduit.
The pattern of these disturbing attacks on the internet lines in California's Bay area raises serious issues about the vulnerability of critical Internet infrastructure. In a similar attack that took place in April 2009, underground fiber-optic cables were cut at four sites in California, leading to disruption of internet service, cellphones, and landlines for tens of thousands in San Benito, Santa Cruz, and Santa Clara counties.
Regarding the latest incident, due to the ongoing investigation, FBI agents declined to specify how serious the attack was among the affected customers in Sacramento area. However, when it affects multiple internet service providers as in the latest attack, cutting the fiber optic backbone internet cables, well, it certainly becomes disturbing.
