Egypt Makes Arrests After Undersea Internet Cable Hacked Apart

Three scuba divers off the coast of Egypt have been arrested, after they were allegedly caught cutting an undersea cable used to connect citizens to the global Internet.

It is believed they were spotted by police on a fishing boat close to the port city of Alexandria, attempting to hack away at an undersea cable run by Telecom Egypt, according to the Associated Press.

Egypt cable cut

Military spokesman Colonel Ahmed Mohammed Ali made the announcement yesterday, but few other details have emerged.

Egyptian Internet services have been disrupted over the past week, but that was largely down to a ship that had damaged one of the undersea cables.

Telecom Egypt executive manager Mohammed el Nawawi told TV channel CBC the network would be restored on Thursday.

Cut cables can cause slowdowns to the global Internet. As all networks rely on other networks to make the Internet work, so when one significant piece of infrastructure is taken out, it can impact other parts of the Web.

Just yesterday, there were claims a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack had caused the Internet to slow down, although in reality, just a handful of organisations were hit and no significant sluggishness was seen.

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