Undersea Cables Dashboard
Updated monthly
Windward MIOC
MIOC

Undersea Cables
Risk Insights

Reporting period
Published
Methodology

Three conditions. One signal.

SpeedSlow
Duration> 1 h
WhereCable route
activities

Exposure, not intent. Most of this activity is legitimate. We measure how much happens over cables, not who meant harm.

Bottom Line Up Front
Key Numbers
Fishing dominates the volume (80% of all activity), but the two threats have different risk profiles: fishing is about accidental damage at scale, service vessels about the few long, slow-speed events that fit surveying or surveillance.
First month of this dashboard. Month-over-month changes start with the next edition.
Activity by Threat Category
Threat split
Fishing is the larger share of activity by volume.
Regional breakdown
Activity by region of the start location. Regions overlap by design.
Top Flags
{cn}China leads by volume, almost entirely through fishing: 26.1% of all activity, ahead of {vn}Vietnam (10.6%) and {kw}Kuwait (8.8%).
Surface Patterns & Insights
    Definitions
    Threat 1 · Intentional
    Surveillance & intelligence collection

    Service, research and survey vessels sailing slowly above cables: consistent with cable mapping, route surveying or preparing surveillance. Most of it is legitimate, so the signal is in who the vessel is and how it behaves.

    What raises the risk
    • State affiliation: China, Iran or Russia
    • Flags of convenience
    • Research & survey vessels
    • Extended presence >24h
    • Strategic corridors & landing points
    Key Numbers
    State-of-Concern activity is small but long-dwelling: 278 events (3.5% of service activity), with {ir}Iranian events averaging 32.7 hours and {ru}Russian ones 18.3, against 13.1 for all service vessels.
    Top Flags · Service Vessels
    {id}Indonesia accounts for 26.5% of service-vessel activity, followed by {no}Norway with 10.0%.
    Vessel Subclass
    Tugs lead where subclass is recorded (20.9% of activity); it is missing for 40.8% of activities.
    State-of-Concern Flags
    Activities
    China, Iran and Russia-flagged service vessels.
    Average dwell (hours)
    Average dwell per event: Iran 32.7 hours, Russia 18.3, China 7.6, against 13.1 hours for all service vessels.
    By Region
    Service-vessel activity
    By region of the start location.
    Flag-of-convenience share
    Open-registry share of each region.
    Extended presence
    Activities lasting more than 24 hours.
    Regions overlap by design: cable systems cross several regions, so an activity can count in more than one and shares don't add up to 100%.
    High-Level Insights & Takeaways
      Threat 2 · Accidental
      Fishing vessel damage

      Unintentional, but the most common cause of real cable faults. Weighted nets, otter boards and ground cables can snag, drag or sever a cable: bottom trawling above all.

      What raises the risk
      • Trawlers
      • Extended-duration fishing
      • High IUU-risk & forced-labour vessels
      • State-of-Concern fleets at scale
      • Bad weather pushing trawlers shallow
      Key Numbers
      {cn}China-flagged vessels: 10,444 activities by 2,758 vessels, 31.8% of all fishing activity and 98.2% of fishing State-of-Concern activity, with 352 of them in the Arabian Sea.
      Top Flags · Fishing Vessels
      {cn}China leads, ahead of {vn}Vietnam and {kw}Kuwait: the top three are 55% of fishing activity.
      State-of-Concern & Regions
      State-of-Concern flags
      China, Iran and Russia-flagged fishing vessels.
      Fishing activity by region
      By region of the start location.
      Regions overlap by design: cable systems cross several regions, so an activity can count in more than one and shares don't add up to 100%.
      Risk Signals by Region
      High-IUU-risk events
      The Indian Ocean has 509 of the 719 High-IUU events. Scoring covers only 2.5% of fishing rows.
      Extended presence
      Activities lasting more than 24 hours.
      Counts are lower bounds: IUU and forced-labour risk are scored for only part of the fleet.
      Confirmed Trawler Events
      Top flags
      Subclass is missing for 92.9% of fishing rows.
      By region
      373 confirmed events by 128 vessels.
      A partial, directional slice: vessel subclass, which identifies trawlers, is missing for most fishing rows.
      High-Level Insights & Takeaways
        Event Map
        About the event map

        The analysis tabs measure slow-speed sailing at scale. The event map shows the other end: individual cases of suspicious vessel behaviour over undersea cables and offshore energy infrastructure, each investigated by analysts at Windward's MIOC.

        Vessel names and identifiers are withheld, and locations are approximate because the activity moves around an area.

        MIOC · Critical infrastructure desk
        0Incidents
        0Regions
        –Period
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