BGP Hijacking: The Internet’s Unverified Roadsign Problem

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The article highlights a critical flaw in the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), where unverified route announcements can reroute traffic maliciously—akin to letting strangers post fake road signs.

Reference: BGP Security Flaws

You Should Know: How BGP Hijacking Works & Mitigation

1. BGP Route Injection (Attack Simulation)

Attackers announce fraudulent IP prefixes to redirect traffic:

 Example: Announcing fake routes via BGP (LAB USE ONLY) 
router bgp 65001 
network 192.0.2.0/24 
neighbor 203.0.113.1 remote-as 65002 
neighbor 203.0.113.1 route-map FAKE_ROUTE out 
! 
route-map FAKE_ROUTE permit 10 
set as-path prepend 65001 65001 65001

2. Detecting BGP Hijacks

Use BGPStream or RIPE Stat to monitor route legitimacy:

 Install BGPStream tools 
sudo apt install bgpstream 
bgpreader -w 2025-06-07 -c route-views.sydney

Check route origins via RIPE 
curl https://stat.ripe.net/data/announced-prefixes/data.json?resource=AS12345

3. Mitigation: RPKI (Resource Public Key Infrastructure)

Enforce route validation using cryptographic attestations:

 Configure RPKI on Linux (BIRD) 
protocol rpki { 
roa4 { table rpki4; }; 
roa6 { table rpki6; }; 
}

4. Manual Prefix Filtering

Block suspicious AS paths:

 Cisco IOS example 
ip prefix-list BLOCK_FAKE seq 5 deny 192.0.2.0/24 
ip prefix-list BLOCK_FAKE seq 10 permit 0.0.0.0/0 le 24

5. Monitoring with MRT Dumps

Analyze global routing tables:

 Fetch MRT dumps 
wget http://archive.routeviews.org/bgpdata/2025.06/RIBS/rib.20250607.0000.bz2 
bgpdump -m rib.20250607.0000.bz2 | grep "192.0.2.0/24"

What Undercode Say

BGP’s trust-based design is a relic of the early internet. Until RPKI adoption becomes universal, network operators must:
– Log BGP updates (e.g., bgplog).
– Enforce IRR filtering (ARIN/RADB).
– Deploy BGP monitoring (e.g., Cloudflare Radar).

Critical Commands Recap:

 Windows: Trace BGP paths 
tracert -d 192.0.2.1

Linux: Validate RPKI state 
rtrdump -j | jq '.roas[] | select(.prefix == "192.0.2.0/24")'

Prediction

BGP hijacking will escalate as IPv4 exhaustion pushes more networks toward unallocated space. AI-driven route validation may emerge by 2026.

Expected Output:

  • BGP hijack detected via bgpreader.
  • RPKI-invalid routes dropped.
  • Network traffic resumes legitimate paths.

IT/Security Reporter URL:

Reported By: Sam Bent – Hackers Feeds
Extra Hub: Undercode MoN
Basic Verification: Pass ✅

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