DIGITAL RISK
Satellite or timing disruptions
Why the Global North will never be immune
Japan has long been one of the most advanced, disaster-resilient countries in the world, renowned for its technological prowess and its earthquake monitoring systems. But in March 2011, a tsunami hit the country and did more than flood the northeast coast and cripple a nuclear power station – it also blindsided the country’s decision makers. Waves up to 40 meters high crashed 10 km inland at speeds of up to 700 km/h, destroying the regional electricity grid and severely damaging the emergency backup systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Cooling capacity was incapacitated within minutes, overheating spiraled
iii) Satellite systems and space weather impact – such as the 2003 Halloween solar storms that disrupted satellite operations and caused aviation communication blackouts. iv) Data centers as the hidden concentration risk – notably in 2017 when hurricanes hit the US Gulf and East Coasts, causing widespread generator failures and data center shutdowns.
“Possible” is the operative word here, as the authors underline how: “The scenarios trace plausible chains of events through tightly coupled systems. They are not exercises in forecasting. Instead, they were attempts to make explicit what is usually left implicit: the dependencies that never appear in risk registers, and the moments at which a digital system crosses, without warning, into a large digital disruption.” The authors give several specific examples, dating back to the 1859 Carrington Event, a solar storm that knocked out telegraph systems across the Northern Hemisphere, electrocuted operators and set offices on fire. According to a Lloyd’s of London insurance assessment, a similar event now could cause more than US$2.5 trillion in damage. Another potential threat is the Kessler effect (or syndrome), involving a chain reaction of collisions between satellites and space debris. In a worst-case scenario, the ensuing cascade could render parts of Earth’s orbit too hazardous for space operations, while disrupting satellite services for years or even decades to come. The second section of the report details four interconnected infrastructure domains: i) Power grids as the foundational layer – susceptible to heatwaves, as in London in 2022 with the Oracle and Google Cloud failures. ii) Submarine cables as the connectivity backbone – vulnerable to rupture as seen in the Red Sea in 2024, when a quarter of all traffic was disrupted between Europe and Asia.
“When digital infrastructure fails, governments and other actors can quickly lose all capacity to evaluate damage, coordinate responses and broadcast guidance.”
Hospitals lose patient data
Illustration: innni/Shutterstock
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