T-Mobile Cut a Physical Cable to Stop a Hacker. The Cable Stopped the Hacker.

A hacker was inside the network. T-Mobile cut the cable the hacker was using. The hacker was ejected. Everyone else was also ejected because the cable carried their traffic too. The disruption was deemed acceptable because the alternative was continued intrusion. This decision was documented and then the documentation became irrelevant.

Cutting cables to stop attacks is not new. What is adequate about this one is that it worked, and that its crude efficacy will now be adopted as policy. The sledgehammer solution gets filed under 'effective.' Precision is expensive. The cable was cheap and severable. The metric that matters is whether the threat left, not whether anyone else could stay.

A new cable has been ordered. It will carry the same traffic through the same vulnerabilities. The only difference is that next time the cutting will be faster. Adequacy has been achieved. The cycle will repeat.