The FCC, responsible for communications regulations in the United States, is watching who has access to vital cable infrastructure—with an eye towards espionage or sabotage.

Even as the majority of Americans carry a smartphone and have near-constant access to the Internet and are used to the “wireless” world of Wi-Fi, the fact remains that the world is very much “wired.” More than 99 percent of international Internet traffic is carried via largely-unguarded undersea cables—a fact that most people are not aware of, and one meaning that rogue actors with sufficient resources could either spy on the cables or cause mass chaos by attacking them.

Last November, the threat to this vital infrastructure was addressed before lawmakers on the Subcommittee on Transportation and Maritime Security and the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection.

“[Undersea cables] are the backbone of global finance. More than $12 trillion in financial transactions flow over these cables each day,” Tim Stronge, chief research officer at TeleGeography, told the lawmakers. “Millions of American jobs now depend on access to digital infrastructure. The US government, itself, is heavily reliant on commercial submarine cables.”

The FCC Is Trying to Keep Track of Undersea Cable Equipment

The US government has heeded the warnings. Last week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved new rules that call for the boosting of cybersecurity regulations. This includes calling for the overhaul of two national emergency systems, including the Emergency Alert System and the Wireless Emergency Alerts.

The FCC will also require licenses for the operators of submarine line terminal equipment, Reuters reported. That is intended to put stricter guardrails on the platforms that perform “the most critical function of a submarine cable system.” US companies could also receive faster approval to operate the undersea cables.

“We ⁠presumptively exempt cable applications from extensive and time-consuming reviews, but only if such applicants can certify to stringent security standards and agree to ongoing oversight and monitoring,” said FCC chair Brendan Carr. “The message is simple: adopt strong national security standards, and get a glide path to application approval.”

The FCC Is Trying to Cut China Out of the Cable Business—for Good Reason

The new rules follow a ban last year on equipment or services used in undersea cable infrastructure from China. Several firms, including Huawei, China Telecom and China Mobile, were named, but the new rules are likely to expand the ban to any equipment from China or any other country that is deemed “a foreign adversary” to US submarine cable systems.

Beijing has argued that it is being unfairly singled out, even as cybersecurity experts have warned that Chinese firms are required by Chinese law to share the information they gather with the government.

The new licensing requirement isn’t meant to put barriers in place for US firms. Instead, the FCC suggested it is about protecting America’s critical infrastructure. To qualify for a fast-track process, operators must meet national security and data security requirements, protect against espionage and other security threats, and certify they do not use equipment deemed to pose security risks.

“Until this vote, no federal agency had licensing authority over the onshore hardware where submarine cables connect to US networks,” explained cybersecurity expert Jacob Krell, senior director of secure AI solutions & cybersecurity at Suzu Labs.

“That equipment ran in a regulatory blind spot,” Krell told The National Interest. “You cannot secure what you cannot enumerate, and until June 25 the FCC had no inventory of who owns terminal equipment or what software it runs.”

Krell also noted that the ‘fast-track’ framing makes this sound like deregulation. However, it is very much the opposite. The FCC is looking to add a layer of security via this regulation.

“Self-certification against ten security standards forces operators to declare their equipment provenance, their vendors, and their security posture on the record. The FCC built a registry where none existed,” Krell said.

This is also a sign that the FCC sees the use of foreign hardware in undersea cables as a persistent threat, and one that hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. The risk from Russian ships and submarines that cut or tap into the cables has received widespread media attention since the start of the Ukraine conflict, but Chinese hardware that could be eavesdropping has largely been ignored.

The FCC is now taking that danger more seriously.

“Physical cable sabotage gets headlines, but prosecuting it under international maritime law is nearly impossible,” Krell said. “Cyber access at landing stations is the risk that scales, and this rule is built to address it.”

About the Author: Peter Suciu

Peter Suciu has contributed to dozens of newspapers, magazines and websites over a 30-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a contributing writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. He is based in Michigan. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.

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