Were the Recent Internet Outages a Harbinger of Future Disruptions?
Were the Recent Internet Outages a Harbinger of Future Disruptions?
Like many people, I was caught off guard when major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and even AT&T's wireless network experienced outages earlier this week. At first, it seemed like just a minor technical hiccup. But then the full scope became clear - this wasn't an isolated incident impacting just one company. Websites and apps across the internet were struggling to stay online amidst a cascading failure.
The outages sparked panicked speculation across social media about potential cyber attacks or doomsday scenarios where the entire internet infrastructure collapses, reminiscent of the apocalyptic events depicted in the Netflix movie "Leave the World Behind."
But should we really be hitting the panic button? Or were these just isolated incidents that revealed some fragility but not an existential threat to the internet itself?
The Long-Term Resilience of the Internet
According to Travis Taylor, cybersecurity expert and co-host of the "What the Hack" podcast, a total meltdown of the internet on an apocalyptic scale is extremely unlikely. He points out that the network was designed back in the 1970s with redundancies specifically to withstand catastrophic events like nuclear attacks.
Taylor explains that the recent outages were more likely caused by a failure in a major piece of infrastructure that many different sites and services have become dependent on due to increasing consolidation in the tech industry.
"Many websites and services rely on the same infrastructure to stay online," Taylor said. "That means if you take out one service, it could be a pretty big chunk of the internet. But taking out the entire internet is extremely unlikely."
Even in worst-case scenarios where large portions of the internet do go offline for an extended period, Taylor is confident the network's decentralized design provides resilience for it to eventually recover and rebound.
"The internet and internet-based services are both very resilient and also very vulnerable. Resilient in the long term and vulnerable in the short term," he said, pointing to the 2021 outage that lasted over 7 hours before being resolved.
No Signs of Nefarious Actors...Yet
While the outages don't seem to have been caused by malicious players, I tried to investigate whether government agencies had any intelligence indicating cyber threat groups were potentially looking to exploit the incident as a distraction for other attacks.
I couldn't find any definitive evidence that the FBI or other agencies believed that to be the case this time around. However, it's clear they are increasingly concerned about supply chain risks and the possibility of systemic vulnerabilities being weaponized against core internet infrastructure.
The language in recent advisories from groups like the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) hints at that current of concern over risks to networks that could be extremely disruptive if exploited by sophisticated threat actors.
A Wake-Up Call
While this week's outages seem to have been resolved without any revelation of larger threat activity, the incidents underscore just how dependent modern society is on a handful of private tech giants to provide reliable internet and online services.
The outages were a wake-up call about the fragility and consolidation in that ecosystem we all rely on for communication, commerce, information and more. Even if the internet itself is designed for long-term resilience, any significant failure in key underlying infrastructure can create cascading disruptions.
It will be interesting to see if such widespread incidents lead to any new regulations, security requirements or other safeguards aimed at protecting internet infrastructure deemed too critical to fail without broad societal impacts.
The integrity and reliability of these systems is increasingly a matter of national security. This week was just a disruption -- but it highlighted how devastating a more malicious or widespread attack could potentially be.
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