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AT&T outage in Silicon Valley brings security into question

April 12, 2009

NewsFactor Network:A telecommunications network in Silicon Valley was taken down last week, and served as a reminder of just how vulnerable infrastructure systems are. Taking the network down only required that vandals clip four fiber-optic lines in the San Jose, Calif., area. The outage affected landline phones, wireless services, broadband Internet and ATMs for tens of thousands of customers in parts of three counties. Emergency 911 services also were affected. The four cables cut belonged to AT&T and affected other carriers like Verizon Wireless. Another cable, owned by Sprint Nextel, was also cut, but that outage was brief as Sprint was able to reroute its traffic. The outage raised questions about how secure the telecommunications network is and comes just days after national security experts warned about malware placed on the U.S. electrical grid, allegedly by hackers from China and Russia.

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