Finnish state-owned Cinia, which builds fiber optic networks and provides telecommunications services, said its C-Lion1 undersea cable between Finland and Germany broke in the Baltic Sea.
This is stated in her press release.
The 1 173 km long cable runs between Santa Hamina in Helsinki and Rostock in Germany. Finlandʼs international telecommunications connections are protected by several routes, and the consequences of a single cable failure depend on the level of security of the service providersʼ connections. However, cable damage burdens the work of others, increasing the load on them.
Yle
Traficom Cyber Security Center Director Samuli Bergström confirmed the cable break to Finnish publication Yle and noted that the cause of the incident is being investigated.
The reasons may vary, as cables are sensitive to weather conditions and damage caused by transportation. The most common cause of cable breakage is human activity, such as fishing or anchoring.
According to Tapio Frantti, professor of cyber security at the University of Jyväskylä, the breach was most likely not an accident, but a deliberate act.
Cinia has now dispatched a repair vessel to the wreck site. It is not specified where exactly it happened. Cable repairs usually take 5 to 15 days.
What happened at Balticconnector
In October 2023, a gas pipeline in the Finnish economic zone and a telecommunications cable in the Estonian economic zone connecting the countries were damaged. Finland later reported that the leak from the Balticconnector gas pipeline occurred "due to external activity." No traces of explosives were found. Sweden later said that the third line, which connects Stockholm and Tallinn, was damaged around the same time as the other two.
The case involves the Chinese vessel NewNew Polar Bear and the Russian Sevmorput. The Finnish National Bureau of Investigation believes that the gas pipeline damaged the anchor, which was found at the bottom of the sea. And Estonia considers three incidents of damage to underwater gas pipelines and cables to be "related".
In August 2024, China admitted that its ship damaged the Balticconnector pipeline.
- Balticconnector is a gas pipeline that has two branches. It transports natural gas between Finland and Estonia depending on supply and demand. The length of the Balticconnector is 77 kilometers, it began operation in 2020.
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