“Wire cutters? Damage to five underwater cables that caused internet outages across the Middle East and Asia may have been an act of sabotage, the International Telecommunication Union says. “Some experts doubt the prevailing view that the cables were cut by accident, especially as the cables lie at great depths under the sea and are not passed over by ships,” its head of development said.

I don’t know whether we will ever find out exactly what or who caused this damage to the Internet infrastructure, but it is well documented that outsourced service providers as well as software development centers in the Middle East, China and India experienced serious downtime. What I wonder about is the economic impact on companies like Vipro, their customers, and other software companies with significant development presence in affected areas, such as Accenture (ACN), Cadence Design Systems (CDN), etc. I will keep looking for subsequent estimates and assessments of risk from attacks on infrastructure.

It also may be interesting to look at a possible impact on SaaS customers in these geographic areas, although it is not clear how many there are and what business processes are being supported by them.