“We need to work together to defend the entire network,” Singapore Defence Minister Chan Chun Sing said at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue security forum on Sunday. “There’s no point trying to defend the integrity and security of a submarine cable by looking at a point. We need both ends to be secure.”
Defence officials from Europe and Southeast Asia called for stronger collaboration to protect the global network of subsea cables as concerns grow over threats to this vital infrastructure.
Countries like Singapore and Malaysia are becoming key hubs for the roughly 600 fibre-optic cables that carry nearly all of the world’s data. Meanwhile, a spike in cable damage in European waters, particularly in the Baltic Sea, has heightened fears about the network’s vulnerability.
