Strengthening the security of BGP: a priority for the IT world

The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), a protocol crucial for routing path planning within the Internet, is being scrutinized for numerous software vulnerabilities as part of a session at the upcoming Black Hat conference. Unveiling these vulnerabilities is a critical task for IT professionals and programmers to properly manage network defenses.

The essence of BGP and its problems

Considered the backbone of the web, BGP is primarily a routing protocol that decides how data packets should be transmitted across the Internet. However, the many security weaknesses that exist in BGP could easily be exploited by cyber attackers to disrupt or intercept online data traffic, seriously jeopardizing data integrity.

The questions about the security of BGP

Black Hat's session will focus on how these weaknesses, referred to as "BGP intrusions," can actually be exploited and how networks can be manipulated to reroute traffic through specific locations, possibly through unreliable countries or network operators. This raises questions about data security, particularly in terms of confidentiality and integrity.

The necessary and expected protection for BGP

Establishing a more robust BGP security mechanism is therefore of utmost importance. The solutions to combat these vulnerabilities include the adoption of improvement measures, such as route validation, the adoption of RPKI (Resource Public Key Infrastructure) for the certification of the routes and the use of protocols such as SIDR (Secure Inter-Domain Routing). Ensuring a secure Internet that is resilient to cyber intrusions and attacks requires a global effort to maintain and continuously improve key protocols such as BGP.