Exploit: The Dark Side of Networks

My computer's hard drive died this weekend. Although it is clearly inconvenient, and will be costly to repair/replace, it's not the end of the world. In fact, I did not lose any pertinent information to this or the other class that I am taking this semester, because all of it is stored on the web, either via this blog or files I have emailed to myself. In this case, connectivity via the internet saved my academic butt.

However, not all stories of connectivity end quite so happily. My office subscribes to Vyvx, a nation-wide fiber network that is used, among other things, to broadcast live video feeds. Their headquarters and main hub is in Tulsa, Oklahoma, pretty much the center of the US, for easy central access to the continental US. But in the spring of 2006, their basement (which contains the servers) flooded, causing the nation-wide network to go down. Since Vyvx nearly has a monopoly on the fiber connectivity world, almost every live shot for every network scheduled that day had to be canceled or re-booked with a satellite truck (if possible). Not only did Vyvx lose thousands of dollars that day, but so did the TV networks and production companies that use their service. The stations lost more than money, they lost content for their shows, which their producers had to scramble to replace at the last minute. Although Vyvx works for all of their clients 99.9% of the time, that day has been etched into the memories of all involved. It is truly an example of how "...networks fail only when they succeed. Networks cultivate the flood, but the flood is what can take down the network" (p. 96). Although the flood was not a malicious attack, it exposed the vulnerability of the Vyvx network to exploitation.

According to Merriam-Webster, to exploit is "to make productive use of , or to make use of meanly or unfairly for one's own advantage."

According to Wikipedia, an exploit is " a piece of software, a chunk of data, or sequence of commands that take advantage of a bug, glitch, or vulnerability in order to cause unintended or unanticipated behavior to occur on computer software, hardware, or something electronic (usually computerized)."

In their book, The Exploit: A Theory of Networks, Galloway and Thacker emphasize that the more homogeneous network is (especially a software driven network), the easier it is to exploit, once a vulnerability has been found. And in particular, " the more Microsoft solidifies its global monopoly, the greater chance for a single software exploit to bring down the entire grid "(p. 17). Computer viruses tend to target Microsoft computers (PCs) way more often than Apple Computers (Macs) or others for this very reason.



Big computer viruses or worms come around every now and then, the latest one being the Conficker Worm, which may have just been one big April Fools joke on everyone, but it really got the Windows world in a panic, causing many patch downloads, and fearful computer users on April 1, 2009. More recent viruses are connected with the Twilight craze. And again, they only effect Windows users. These Twilight viruses exploit two overlapping groups; they exploit people who are into Twilight and they exploit Windows based computers, both of which happen to be very popular right now. Twilight fans tend (for the most part) to be younger females, who are very likely to be on the web. These fans are excited to get the inside scoop on Twilight: New Moon, which came out this week in theaters, and will be searching online for interviews with the actors and any other inside material they can find. Knowing this, hackers have created websites that will show up in search results, prompting unsuspecting fans to download viruses, thinking that they are getting interviews or a sneak peak of the movie.

Although it would be possible to exploit these groups on a case by case basis, it is made infinitely easier with the network of the World Wide Web. Web browsers are also susceptible to virus contamination, especially, you guessed it, Internet Explorer. With a usage percentage of nearly 65%, Internet Explorer is by far the most popular web browser. So, since "computer viruses thrive in environments that have low levels of diversity" (p. 84), viruses have targeted Internet Explorer much more often than Firefox and Safari, the second and third most popular browsers. The reason for this is obvious, apart from homogeneity, monopolies provide a way to use the network to the viruses' advantage and affect the largest group of people possible.

So, is the solution to vulnerability to buck the trend or get out of the network altogether? Would the relief that comes with knowing you won't have to worry about exploitation be worth the pain of being disconnected? And even if it is, “the idea of connectivity is so highly privileged today that it is becoming more and more difficult to locate places or objects that don’t, in some way, fit into a networking rubric” (p. 26). Plus, you would lose the benefits to gained from being connected, like not losing everything you've done all semester when your computer dies, among other communication and information losses. So,maybe the simple solution (if there is one) is this: be smart. Have a contingency plan. And back up your files.