Andrew Dwyer 

Visiting Fellow

Career

Research in brief

Thesis: Malware Ecologies: A Politics of Cybersecurity

Abstract: Malicious software, oft abbreviated to malware, is affecting society at greater depth and frequency through our growing (inter)dependency on computation. From attacks impacting the UK’s NHS, to threats of ‘cyberwar,’ to techniques to steal confidential documents to influence democratic elections, malware plays a major role in contemporary politics. Yet, there has been little critical attention to malware as an object, as a political actor that exceeds human intent. In this thesis, I explore malware and its politics, conducting an (auto)ethnographic study of a malware analysis laboratory in a process of 'becoming-analyst' at the UK ‘anti-virus’ business, Sophos. With the support of four case study forms (Conficker, Stuxnet, the Dukes, and WannaCry/(Not)Petya), I ask how societies encounter and understand threats presented by malware in the twenty-first century. I argue we need a new way of thinking. This moves away from conventional pathological logics that conflate organic and non-organic systems, of malware as a defined object moving within networks, or as a kind of disease. Thinking ecologically draws on the experimentation of early thinking in ‘viral’ thought to conceive malware as political actors, exploring how analysts analyse, detect, and curate knowledge of malware, and how the performance of malware affect politics and international relations. I wish to demonstrate malware geographies extend far beyond the boundaries of what has previously been considered 'virtual' or 'cyber' space. This provides a platform to critique contemporary cybersecurity theorisation to consider whether conventional notions of space, and hence security, are suitable and in so doing, presenting malware ecologies as an alternative.

Publications

• Lorimer, J., Hodgetts, T., Dwyer, A., Greenhough, B., McLeod, C., and Grenyer, R. (2019, forthcoming). Making the microbiome public: participatory experiments with DNA sequencing in domestic kitchens. Transactions of the British Institute of Geographers.
• Dwyer, A. (2018). "The NHS cyber-attack: A look at the complex environmental conditions of WannaCry." RAD Magazine, 44, 512: 25-26.
• Greenhough, B., Dwyer, A., Grenyer, R., Hodgetts, T., McLeod, C., Lorimer, J. (2018). "Unsettling antibiosis: How might interdisciplinary researchers generate a feeling for the microbiome and to what effect?” Palgrave Communications 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-018-0196-3 
• Hodgetts, T., Grenyer, R., Greenhough, B., McLeod, C., Dwyer, A., Lorimer, J. (2018). "The microbiome and its publics: A participatory approach for engaging publics with the microbiome and its implications for health and hygiene." EMBO reports 19(6). DOI: 10.15252/embr.201845786.
• Dwyer, A. (2015) "Future Fossils: The Pacemaker". Society and Space (Open Site). Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20180510034505/http://societyandspace.org/2015/08/20/the-pacemakerandew-dwyer/