Exploit is defended by creative influence (6)
I believe the answer is:
misuse
'exploit' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'is defended by creative influence' is the wordplay.
'defended by' is an insertion indicator.
'creative influence' becomes 'muse' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'is' put inside 'muse' is 'MISUSE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for misuse that I've seen before include "Apply badly or incorrectly" , "Employ or apply wrongly" , "Treat badly, unfairly" , "Mistreat, misapply" , "Treat the wrong way or for the wrong purpose" .)