Top 5 Methods to Safeguard Critical Maritime Infrastructure

Critical Function + Vulnerability = Attractive Target 

Areas such as the Baltic Sea have become hot spots for submarine cable sabotage attempts and incidents. The importance of this critical maritime infrastructure, in conjunction with its vulnerability, make it an attractive target. 

Critical maritime infrastructure – encompassing submarine cables, energy pipelines, and underwater power grids – forms the backbone of global communication, economic stability, and national security. 

But it is increasingly vulnerable to sabotage, espionage, and accidental damage. With rising geopolitical tensions and advanced maritime capabilities, safeguarding these vital assets demands proactive strategies and coordinated international responses.

This guide takes a quick dive into the different types of threats and outlines the top five methods for effectively safeguarding maritime infrastructure via a proactive approach. 

The Complexity of the Threats and Changing Tactics 

Discussions surrounding threats to critical maritime infrastructure often generalize the risk as uniform and consistent. But undersea infrastructure varies significantly in type – ranging from fiber optic cables and pipelines, to wind farms, oil and gas rigs; and in location, spanning deep-sea regions, shallow waters accessible by anchor, and even surface-level installations. 

The motives behind approaching or interfering with these infrastructures are diverse, including mapping, intelligence gathering, espionage, and physical sabotage to cause extensive damage.

Addressing these complex threats with a single, generalized solution overlooks the specific vulnerabilities and unique conditions faced by each type of infrastructure. 

Before November 2024, concerns mostly centered on governmental vessels equipped for specialized, deep-sea missions. Deep-sea operations typically involve governmental service vessels, often research or survey ships. These missions are characterized by slow-speed activities/loitering – they require deploying equipment to depths of hundreds of meters to perform their tasks. The primary objective of such operations is generally not to cause damage, such as severing undersea cables, but rather to gather data or conduct specific research.

But recently there has been a notable increase in incidents involving commercial vessels conducting opportunistic sabotage in shallow waters. This emerging threat profile presents new challenges due to the varied nature and widespread availability of potential offending vessels.

There’s Been a Shift Towards Immediate/Opportunistic Sabotage 

Shallow-water operations represent a newer and more aggressive method explicitly aimed at damaging maritime infrastructure. This approach involves dragging heavy equipment – commonly an anchor – across the seabed to physically harm the cables. Unlike deep-sea missions, shallow-water operations raise quick accusations of sabotage. 

Vessels involved in these activities have been linked to the shadow, gray, or dark fleets associated with the Russian government, raising significant geopolitical and security concerns.

Russia has long conducted strategic undersea cable mapping as part of its military preparedness, using specialized naval assets to identify vulnerabilities in critical communications and energy networks. This activity serves as a preparatory step, potentially enabling Russia to disrupt NATO’s military communications, economic stability, and operational coordination in a future large-scale conflict (or as part of the current Russia-Ukraine war).

Recent incidents, however, reflect a shift towards immediate, opportunistic sabotage operations. These disruptions often involve merchant or research vessels purportedly causing damage through anchor dragging (which they oftentimes later can claim was “accidental”). 

Unlike full-scale military actions, these low-attribution attacks aim to inflict immediate economic and operational strain on NATO member states, creating financial burdens and disrupting essential services, without triggering open conflict, due to the plausible deniability. 

Deep-sea operations typically involve governmental service vessels, such as research or survey ships. These activities, characterized by slow-speed sailing and prolonged loitering, primarily serve intelligence-gathering and mapping purposes, rather than immediate sabotage.

Military vessels operated by the Russian Navy’s Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research (GUGI), employ autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), and advanced sonar systems to map infrastructure. 

Such missions provide crucial intelligence for potential future sabotage or espionage activities, highlighting the need for sustained surveillance and vigilance.

These Typologies Look and Behave Different

Effective mitigation strategies to combat these different types of threats depend on understanding how each typology plays out on the ground (or rather, in the sea). Now that we’ve laid out these different operations, in deep sea and shallow water, let’s take a look at their different characteristics…

Deep Sea Operations

Due to the depth of the water and complexity of the operation, these deep sea sorties are carried out by research/service vessels, or military/government vessels – designated vessels with advanced equipment on board.

The mapping of cable locations requires longer periods of slow-speed sailing over cables, usually in a dense and structured pattern: 

Longer periods of slow-speed sailing over cables. Source: Windward Maritime AI™ 

These operations are challenging to identify, due to their occurrence in open waters – vast areas that are more sparsely covered by surveillance. In the absence of immediate physical impact on the infrastructure, like in cases of disruption caused by sabotage, there’s often no way of knowing when a cable has been compromised, surveyed, or tampered with.

To mitigate these risks, the best approach is to focus on activity and location – monitoring the exact cable location for suspicious sailing patterns. While drifting in the middle of the ocean is a legitimate behavior for research and survey vessels, doing so on top of a cable is a strong indicator for possible nefarious intent. 

Shallow Waters Operations

Shallow water operations pose a different challenge – they often occur in busy sailing routes, where hundreds or thousands of vessels pass daily.

Sabotage happens quickly, often as simply as dragging an anchor while sailing over a cable, and can be caused by any vessel above a certain tonnage passing over a cable at a speed that is not necessarily below 3kn. It’s extremely difficult to prevent in time.

The vast amount of vessels posing a possible threat to cables in shallow waters means that ill-intentioned vessels can easily hide and conceal their intentions among a massive population of potential culprits.  

Given the ubiquity of the activity that could cause harm to cables, a mitigation approach would have to focus less on identifying risky behavior, but more on vessel profile. This means defining vessels that are more likely to intentionally cause disruption based on risk indicators, historical behavior, or affiliation with certain regimes, and are approaching an area of interest. 

High risk, Russian-flagged vessels located in proximity to an undersea cable. Source: Windward Maritime AI™ 

Top 5 Methods for Safeguarding Maritime Infrastructure

The threats are not uniform and there are many obstacles, but here are five proven methods for safeguarding critical maritime infrastructure. 

1. AI-Driven Behavioral Analytics

Employing artificial intelligence (AI) to continuously monitor maritime activities and deceptive shipping practices (DSPs) is crucial. AI tools can analyze vast datasets to detect suspicious vessel behaviors – such as dark activities, slow-speed sailing near critical infrastructure, or erratic navigational patterns – which are often indicative of preparatory sabotage actions, or intelligence-gathering missions. Real-time detection of these anomalies empowers organizations to proactively respond, significantly enhancing security around critical assets.

2. Enhanced Maritime Domain Awareness

Comprehensive surveillance combining satellite imagery, AIS tracking, and radar systems ensures visibility across vast oceanic expanses. Such an integrated approach enables swift identification of unauthorized vessel movements near vulnerable infrastructure, providing timely alerts to defense and law enforcement agencies. The adoption of integrated surveillance technologies reduces blind spots and fortifies operational responsiveness.

3. International Collaboration and Intelligence Sharing

Collaborative frameworks, exemplified by NATO’s Maritime Centre for Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure and the Baltic Sentry Initiative, highlight the necessity of international coordination. By establishing secure, real-time intelligence-sharing channels among government agencies, private infrastructure operators, cybersecurity firms, and allied nations, maritime security can be considerably strengthened. Coordinated efforts deter potential aggressors by diminishing operational blind spots.

Technology that makes sharing alerts, warnings, and post-incident investigations easier will buttress the alliances against bad actors.  

4. Strategic Asset Hardening and Redundancy

Proactively securing maritime infrastructure includes strategic asset hardening – physical protections and technical redundancies. Undersea cables can be reinforced at critical shallow-water chokepoints and landing stations. Creating backup cable routes and redundant communication pathways ensures continuous service, even if a primary cable is compromised. Strategic hardening mitigates the impact of any sabotage attempts.

5. Regulatory Framework and Enforcement Mechanisms

Strengthening international regulatory frameworks and national enforcement mechanisms is critical. Current governance around undersea infrastructure is fragmented, with significant gaps in oversight, especially in international waters. 

Establishing robust, universally accepted protocols for protecting critical infrastructure, backed by strict enforcement measures, will make it significantly harder for adversaries to operate without detection. Clear jurisdictional responsibilities and standardized protective measures will enhance the effectiveness of protective actions.

Windward’s New Solution Can Help

Windward’s Critical Maritime Infrastructure Protection solution addresses the intricate nature of undersea threats effectively. Leveraging AI-driven technology, Windward provides real-time behavioral analytics, advanced threat detection, and situational awareness. Our system identifies suspicious vessel populations, flags behavioral anomalies such as dark activities or slow-speed sailing, and delivers instant alerts around infrastructure locations.

With Windward, organizations can anticipate threats, respond proactively, and rapidly investigate incidents – and collaborate easily with other agencies. Our sophisticated monitoring and analytical capabilities empower stakeholders to safeguard their maritime infrastructure from emerging threats comprehensively, helping to facilitate global connectivity, economic stability, and national security.

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