Communications of the ACM
The Internet's Vulnerable Backbone
Credit: Slate
In February, a criminal started redirecting the online activities of bitcoin mining groups and stole at least $83,000 worth in bitcoins over the course of four months, according to a new report by Dell SecureWorks. The report says the thief relied on the inappropriate use of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), which is essential to the operation of the Internet. BGP enables autonomous networks, such as Comcast and Verizon, to connect and direct traffic among themselves.
BGP routers are used by service providers to announce which Internet Protocol addresses they can easily deliver traffic to so other providers know which traffic to send them. Networks continuously update and broadcast these announcements, but the accuracy of the information provided by BGP routers means anyone who can gain access to one can redirect some part of online traffic. The bitcoin theft incidents likely involved a person working at a Canadian Internet service provider who sent out false routing announcements and redirected the traffic of groups dedicated to bitcoin mining. The thief retained the bitcoins gathered by those groups' machines rather than paying them out to the owners of the mining computers.
Experts say exploits that take advantage of underlying Internet architecture weaknesses likely only can be fixed by overhauling the Internet.
From Slate
View Full Article
Abstracts Copyright © 2014 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA
No entries found