Oracle: Internet traffic from US was diverted via China Telecom

Internet traffic from, among others, the United States has been regularly diverted in recent years via the infrastructure of China Telecom, according to Oracle. In doing so, the company confirms recent claims about manipulating bgp routing.

Oracle’s Doug Madory, director of internet analysis, does not elaborate on the motives for diverting internet traffic via China Telecom, but does confirm that this happened. He describes how, from the end of 2015, autonomous systems, groups of IP networks, allowed traffic from providers to run via China Telecom.

Madory advised Tier 1 network providers to install filters to prevent the rerouting, but even after that, networks peering directly with China Telecom continued to redirect traffic through China, even if it was US-to-US traffic.

Oracle thereby partly confirms the claims of the American Naval War College, which published an investigation two weeks ago about alleged BGP hijacking by China Telecom. Such hijacks are possible, according to the researchers, because the border gateway protocol is difficult to configure.

“If network as1 falsely announces via bgp that it owns an IP block that is actually owned by as2, traffic from a part of the internet destined for as2 will be redirected to and through as1,” the study said. Oracle therefore calls for the development of an ietf standard for the verification of axis routes.