Munching squirrel attacks National Internet backbone, NSG scrambled

In the wee hours of today morning when the rest of the nation was asleep, an intruder allegedly attacked the country’s internet backbone- a series of servers resting in the nation’s financial capital, Mumbai. The intruder in question, a disgruntled squirrel, chewed away a crucial cable that led to a 3 TB dip in national bandwidth availability. This means that the nation will have to do with less internet, this weekend.

CCTV footage of the munching delinquent

When the attack was first detected, the nation’s premier technical intelligence agency the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) thought that the nation’s cyber infrastructure was under attack by forces inimical to the nation and asked the government to take immediate action. The home ministry reacted as usual by scrambling the NSG which reached the scene of crime within minutes only to be shocked beyond belief.

When the NSG commandoes landed at the top-secret venue, they were greeted by the ‘inimical’ perpetrator, a lone squirrel. The servers weren’t attacked by the squirrel as initially thought, but were down because the cooling system in the building was not functioning properly. But the submarine VSNL cable which brings in almost 3 TB of bandwidth was severely damaged, thanks to the munching squirrel. The squirrel was arrested immediately and has been remanded to judicial custody for a week. Intelligence sources have refused to rule out the role of an external paw in the incident.

The opposition leaders got into a huddle almost as soon as the news hit the wires and started discussing a strategy to corner UPA on the issue. "We have decided to take the government to task since this is a matter of national security and they (government) cannot take it lightly. So we will have a proper debate on the floor of the house and follow it with tea and biscuits," a BJP leader said.