Finnish officials say the vessel is suspected of being responsible for the damage to the cable owned by the telecoms group Elisa and located in Estonia's exclusive economic zone. No details about the identity of the vessel were disclosed. The cable was damaged in the Gulf of Finland, part of the Baltic Sea bordered by Estonia, Finland and Russia. Elisa, which is based in Helsinki, detected a fault in its cable early on Wednesday and reported it to Finnish authorities, police said.
A pair of U.S. Senators say there are specific serious threats to the nation's phone networks, but the Trump administration has yet to release a relevant report about the threats. In a letter last week, U.S. Senators Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, and Mark Warner, D-Virginia - who is vice-chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence - asked for the report to be released, claiming it identifies serious telecommunications industry vulnerabilities.
Ribbon supplies software, IP, and optical networking systems to telecoms service providers, businesses, and critical infrastructure organizations including BT, Verizon, CenturyLink, Deutsche Telekom, and Tata, as well as public-sector bodies such as the US Defense Department and the City of Los Angeles. In a with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the company has revealed that "unauthorized persons, reportedly associated with a nation-state actor" had gained access to its network in December 2024.
It can't be understated what this system is capable of doing," said Matt McCool, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service's New York field office. "It can take down cell towers, so then no longer can people communicate, right? .... You can't text message, you can't use your cell phone. And if you coupled that with some sort of other event associated with UNGA, you know, use your imagination there, it could be catastrophic to the city."
The Secret Service said on Tuesday that it had uncovered and dismantled a covert, high-tech operation in the New York area, which had the capability to disrupt cellular networks. The discovery came as international leaders were preparing to attend the annual United Nations General Assembly nearby, the New York Times reported. Authorities revealed that the hidden communications system included over 100,000 SIM cards and 300 servers. It was designed to allow anonymous, encrypted messaging and had the potential to interfere with emergency communication services.
