The Infrastructure of a Quarter of the World’s Internet Users is Vulnerable to Attacks

According to a large-scale study undertaken by academics at the University of California San Diego, almost a quarter of the world’s internet users live in nations with internet infrastructure more vulnerable to targeted attacks. Computer experts surveyed a total of 75 countries. The findings were presented at the online Passive and Active Measurement Conference 2022.

A Quarter of Internet Users is Vulnerable to Attacks

“We wanted to look at the Internet’s structure to see whether there were any weak links that could expose a whole nation’s traffic if they were compromised.” In a press statement, Alexander Gamero-Garrido, the paper’s first author, said, “A major section of the Internet does not function with peering contracts for network connectivity.”

The internet structure varies greatly depending on whatever country you are in. A considerable proportion of internet service providers (ISPs) compete and offer services to a big number of users in some places, such as the United States. Direct peering is a method in which ISPs have networks closely linked to one another and exchange content.

Fewer ISPs for Internet Access

However, the survey discovered that internet users in some countries in the global south depend on just a few ISPs for internet connectivity. In some of these countries, one ISP serves a considerable percentage of the population. To gain access to the global internet and internet traffic from other nations, these providers frequently rely on a small number of organizations.

This means that an attacker might disrupt an entire nation’s internet connection by targeting just one or a few of these organizations, known as autonomous transit systems. In nations such as Cuba and Sierra Leone, a single transit autonomous system provider connects practically all of the country’s consumers, posing a worst-case situation.

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