A global data outage

✨ Watch on YouTube or listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

We rarely think about the cables beneath the seabed. Yet these slender threads of fibre carry almost everything: financial transactions, government communications, hospital data, power flows, even the messages on your phone. When six undersea cables were damaged in just days in the Baltic Sea, it was not a technical hiccup. It was a warning.

Joining Georgina Godwin at Here East, security expert Elizabeth Braw explains why what looks like maritime clumsiness may in fact be something more strategic — and why undersea infrastructure has become one of the defining vulnerabilities of our age.

This conversation is not alarmist – it’s clarifying. Because if the internet falters, it is not simply about slower streaming. It is about payments freezing, aviation systems stalling, supply chains wobbling and small nations suddenly cut off.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why multiple cable cuts change everything — how redundancy works, why small countries are especially exposed, and how a regional disruption could ripple outward through finance and trade.

• How modern “grey zone” sabotage operates — from suspicious anchor-dragging to legal loopholes in international waters, and why proving intent is so difficult.

• What resilience really means — from Baltic Sea patrols and AI surveillance to the practical steps households should consider if connectivity disappears overnight.

Watch the episode on YouTube below, or listen via your preferred podcast app.