MANRSVerified account

Border Gateway Protocol, or #BGP, directs traffic across the Internet. Networks announce things like, “Hey, baby, I can take you anywhere you wanna go.” (AKA that website you want). Basically, BGP is like an #onlinedating app. /2

But #BGP assumes that all networks are trustworthy, which is no longer the case. So, really, BGP is one of those sketchy free #onlinedating apps where people can lie about anything they want. Here are some of the problems: /3

The #lovetriangle: Juan’s trying to get with Maria, but Chad swoops in and derails the whole thing. In a “route hijack,” an attacker lies about what networks they can reach. Traffic goes to the attacker (Chad) instead of its destination (Maria). /4

The #ghosting: Juan and Maria are an item, but then Maria stops responding. Juan accidentally entered her number wrong. A “route leak” is similar to a hijack in that an attacker spreads lies about where they can go, but leaks are often accidental misconfigurations. /5

The #catfish: Chad tells Maria everything she wants to hear, lures her in, and then scams her, all using Juan’s picture and info. In “IP address spoofing,” an attacker uses a fake source IP address to hide the sender’s identity or to impersonate someone else. /6