I switched from epidemiology to network security as my day job years ago, but today’s pandemic reminds me of the similarities between the two fields. There are many lessons we can take from the real-world virus and apply them to security in the online world.

It may not be obvious, but the spread of information on computer networks is like disease processes. It starts at the most basic level — when you connect to the Internet, you launch what epidemiologists would call a “nearest neighbor spread” process but what network gurus call a routing protocol. One router learns that you’re there, it tells its neighbors, and they tell their neighbors, in a wave that spreads out across the network — spreading your information like a disease.