According to news reports, a third undersea cable to the middle east got cut. The third cable cut today was less important then the other two, but it was one of the systems used as a "backup" during the last few days. On Wednesday, two cables off the coast of Egypt got cut. Today, one more off the coast of Dubai was cut. Of course, three cuts in such a short time may look suspect. But don't forget that you have "cascade failures" where backup systems go down due to overload once the primary system goes down. The cable that went down today wasn't used much in part as it was known as less reliable. These cable cuts are in particular challenging as repair times are long (weeks) and there is little extra capacity. Other technologies like Satellites do not provide the same capabilities as cables. Connectivity to and from the Middle East as well as India is severely affected. Availability and disaster recovery planning is a frequently neglected security function. Newcomers to the security field are frequntly attracted by "cool exploits". But the true professional usually knows that boring and tedious tasks like disaster recovery planning will frequently save the business in the end. Also see: http://www.renesys.com/blog/2008/01/mediterranean_cable_break_part_1.shtml