By Ventura Breeze Staff –
Charter Communications announced that it has deemed the June 15 attack on its communications network in Van Nuys, California, an act of domestic terrorism based on the nature of the fiber cuts, extent of damage and make-up of impacted customers.
The early morning attack, which severed 13 cables, including more than 2600 individual fibers, disrupted connectivity and impacted redundancy to emergency services, including a U.S. military base, emergency dispatch and 911 communication services, local fire and police departments, financial institutions, court buildings, healthcare facilities and hospitals, educational institutions, as well as cell towers providing mobile services. In total, more than 50,000 residential customers and more than 500 business customers were affected for up to 30 hours.
“These criminal attacks on our country’s vital communications networks are intentional and cause outages that put lives at risk,” said Chris Winfrey, President and CEO, Charter Communications. “This is a pervasive and persistent threat to American families and businesses across the country that cannot be tolerated, and such life-threatening events should be declared acts of domestic terrorism and prosecuted accordingly.
“This requires immediate attention from federal and state legislation classifying these attacks as a felony, dedicated engagement from federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, and swift, aggressive prosecution of those criminals causing the perilous situation that results from these outages.”
LA City Councilman John Lee added, ”The rise in deliberate attacks on critical communications infrastructure poses a significant threat to national security, with resulting outages impacting military bases and emergency services while imposing substantial financial burdens on taxpayers and local governments. These disruptions divert crucial resources and have far-reaching consequences. Safeguarding our communications infrastructure is vital for creating safe, resilient communities, and we call on everyone to stay alert, take proactive measures, and swiftly report any incidents related to this widespread issue.”
The Van Nuys incident is the latest in an escalating pattern of critical infrastructure attacks impacting telecommunications providers across the country. Between June-December 2024, the collective industry suffered nearly 6,000 intentional incidents of critical communications infrastructure attacks putting access to life-saving public resources at risk for more than 1.5 million American families and businesses due to criminal disruptions to connectivity.
In an effort to thwart this growing threat, Spectrum is offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information related to these criminal infrastructure attacks that leads to an arrest. Anyone with information can contact Spectrum at 833-404-TIPS (8477) or reach out to local law enforcement. Charter will continue to refer to these intentional attacks on critical infrastructure as domestic terrorism, reflecting what they are, and demanding the appropriate level of attention nationwide. More information about Charter can be found at corporate.charter.com.
