October 21, 2022
The internet connection has recently been affected worldwide due to fiber optic cable damage in the south of France and the Shetland Islands, affecting subsea cable connections to Europe, Asia and the United States. The incident led to data packet losses and slow website responses.
According to cloud security firm Zscaler, three French routes were affected – Marseille-Lyon, Marseille-Milano, and Marseille-Barcelona.
Zscaler reports that it has made routing changes to reduce the impact, but problems persist because the app and content provider routed traffic through the affected paths.
“Zscaler is working with the content providers to have them influence their portion of the path,” reads a notice from Zscaler.
While the repair teams arrived at the scene, they had to wait until the police had gathered evidence. The problem has now been fixed and internet connectivity has been restored.
Shetland Islands subsea cables, on the other hand, were reportedly disrupted by fishing vessels, leading to a breakdown of internet services on the island because the cables were unable to connect to the Scottish mainland.
The sources for this piece include an article in BleepingComputer.
