By Farrukh Ahmad
February 5, 2008
The fragile nature of the Internet was felt throughout the Middle East as a result of recent problems with underwater fiber optic cables connecting the East to the West. It is being reported that the cause was "just a ship" that damaged underwater cables. This damage impaired communications for 75 million users. To add to the woes of the Middle East, Qtel is reporting failures of undersea cables connecting UAE and Oman and between Qatar and the UAE, a quadruple whammy when coupled with the SEA-ME-WE4 and FLAG cable damage. Although the events did affect Qatar, its modern networking and resilient connections generally limited the to higher bandwidth services.
The Internet provides the backbone for the majority of global business traffic. Even if a business is not using the Internet directly, it is likely that the same cables that carry Internet traffic also carry private "circuits," so not relying on the Internet may not have prevented business interruptions. The Internet is probably one of the more resilient systems that humans have designed, but its Achilles heel is clearly evident from these series of incidents. Although relatively unprecedented, services that rely on the Internet will suffer when this type of multiple failures occurs.
Internet interruptions have a serious impact on individual businesses, especially in "Internet-dependent" countries. India, for example, whose economy depends on IT and provides front and back-office services (facilitated by critical electronic communications, of course) is feeling the heat. It is inevitable that businesses will look at this incident and reassess their outsourcing risks.
This brings up a very important aspect: how to protect such critical pieces of infrastructure? This puzzle can only be solved by undertaking a number of activities simultaneously to provide the level of protection expected from the local population and global trading partners. Protection can only start by identifying the elements that the country believes are critical; a national strategy to organize and plan how the country will manage and assign responsibility for all critical infrastructure is required.
Because most of these cables lie in the hands of private (telecommunications) companies, governments must work with the private sector to ensure that they are safeguarded from inadvertent or malicious forms of attack. This effort needs to be followed by a government drive to ensure that there are strong measures in place to prevent operators and owners of critical infrastructure from relinquishing their responsibilities to safeguard these critical assets.
Actively following these two initiatives will improve the situation, but generally this is not enough. Countries that have been actively trying to improve the protection of their critical infrastructure cite the use of information sharing groups and crisis simulation as key initiatives in the protection toolbox. The ability of organizations, in a critical industry, to proactively identify their sector's weaknesses, and jointly address them, will provide strength and agility when tackling unforeseen incidents. Crisis simulation that tests multiple critical sectors and cross dependencies will verify the planning and rehearse for a real-life situation.
This series of accidents should set the alarm bells ringing, and keeping such connections secure should be a higher priority for everyone. Qatar's government is putting these initiatives in place for the safety, security, and economic well-being of all citizens and residents of Qatar. Critical infrastructure affects our daily lives— its loss or degradation will have a direct impact on us. We must work together to ensure that our hard efforts in developing Qatar as the pioneering country in the region are protected.