A defect in a Baltic Sea fiber optic cable disrupted data transfer between Finland and Germany on Monday.

Ari-Jussi Knaapila, head of the Finnish operator Cinia, said at a press conference on Monday that the cable may have been severed by an external cause. The sudden failure last night points to this. However, the physical inspection is still pending.

The 1173-kilometer-long "C-Lion1" cable runs between Helsinki and Rostock. It connects the data centers of continental Europe with those in Scandinavia. The network and cyber security company Cinia says it is working with the Finnish authorities to investigate the incident. It usually takes between five and 15 days to repair an undersea cable.

Last year, a gas pipeline and several telecom cables were damaged in the Baltic Sea. Finnish investigators suspect that an anchor of a Chinese container freighter dragging on the seabed was responsible. However, it is unclear whether intent was involved. Two years ago, the destruction of several Baltic Sea gas pipelines between Russia and Germany made headlines. It is still unclear who ordered the act of sabotage.

(Report by Louise Breusch Rasmussen and Essi Lehto, written by Hakan Ersen and Christian Götz, edited by Sabine Ehrhardt. If you have any queries, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)