General BGP is unsafe on Virgin Media's network

Kushan · 19-04-2020, 20:24

BGP is the method in which various networks/ISPs exchange routing information with each other. Routing is how your ISP knows when you want to connect to an IP address, where that IP address exists on the internet. When you connect to 1.1.1.1, BGP is what lets the ISP know where to route that packet to in order to get to Cloudflare (who owns 1.1.1.1). The internet relies on BGP.

Unfortunately, it's susceptible to attacks. Numerous internet outages have been caused by BGP hijacking. You know those times every now and then when you lose access to large chunks of the internet, seemingly with no pattern to it? That's usually a BGP hijack. Often caused by a misconfiguration from some other ISP - but occasionally caused by a nation state, it can mean anything from blocking your internet access to having all of your data routed through China (Without you knowing).

Anyway, Cloudflare is trying to secure BGP and have set up this website to track its progress: https://isbgpsafeyet.com/

On that page there's a test you can do - and Virgin Media currently fails this test.

Now to be absolutely clear - most ISPs will fail this test today. But make no mistake, this is a serious issue and one that Virgin should work towards fixing - for your security and privacy.

(I've cross-posted this over onto the VM forums).

**Hugh** · 19-04-2020, 20:37

Some more info on this.

https://www.aa.net.uk/etc/news/bgp-and-rpki/

Kushan · 19-04-2020, 20:45

I feel AAISP are doing some unnecessary damage control there.

**Hugh** · 19-04-2020, 21:12

And they believe Cloudflare are over-egging the pudding.

Kushan · 19-04-2020, 21:31

Perhaps, but Cloudflare has been going on about this for at least 2 years now, while RPKI has been around for nearly 8 with little traction. It has been 18 months since Cloudflare enabled it and still little traction.

pip08456 · 20-04-2020, 13:06

A bit more background here.

https://www.revk.uk/2020/04/bgp.html

paul0363 · 21-04-2020, 20:19

And even more here

kev445 · 23-04-2020, 11:12

It's really not an issue.

Kushan · 23-04-2020, 13:03

It's not an issue that people need to be paranoid about (And I admit Cloudflare has caused a bit of panicking with their messaging on this one), but it is an issue all the same.

With the rise of SSL everywhere, it's perhaps less of an issue but it's still problematic when a nation state gets involved.

**Paul** · 23-04-2020, 16:07

Its a load of fuss over very little.

Its like saying "walking to the shops" is unsafe.

Technically, yes it is, you may have an accident, or be mugged, but its highly unlikely.

Kushan · 23-04-2020, 16:38

I don't agree with that analogy. It's arguably less likely to happen than a road accident, but much more severe if it does happen.

Pretty much any country in the world could publish a BGP route that redirects traffic to themselves. That means everyone from China to Libya could disrupt major parts of the internet, accidentally or deliberately, on a whim and at any time.

Given how we're all working remotely at the moment, even a small blip could cost billions.

Yes, as I said it's unlikely to happen but it has happened several times. Remember, people dismissed preparing for a pandemic because it was so unlikely to happen.