Stretching back to the AS7007 leak of 1997, this comprehensive blog post covers the most notable and significant BGP incidents in the history of the i

A Brief History of the Internet’s Biggest BGP Incidents

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2024-11-25 12:00:06

Stretching back to the AS7007 leak of 1997, this comprehensive blog post covers the most notable and significant BGP incidents in the history of the internet, from traffic-disrupting BGP leaks to crypto-stealing BGP hijacks.

In the summer of 2022, I joined a team of BGP experts organized by the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG) to draft a comprehensive report covering the security of the internet’s routing infrastructure. The section that I was primarily responsible for covered the history of notable BGP incidents, a topic I have written about extensively throughout my career in the internet industry.

Below is an edited version of my take on the internet’s most notable BGP incidents. Henry Birge-Lee of Princeton was the primary author of a large portion of the section on the attacks on cryptocurrency services.

BGP routing incidents can be problematic for a range of reasons. In some cases, they simply disrupt the flow of legitimate internet traffic while in others, they can result in the misdirection of communications, posing a security risk from interception or manipulation. Routing incidents occur with some regularity and can vary greatly in operational impact. In this blog post, I will address selected specific incidents which have demonstrated the range and gravity of threats to the stability and security of the internet’s routing system.