Every time you open a website, connect to a VPN, stream a video, or send an email, your data travels across dozens of independently operated networks before reaching its destination.
That journey is coordinated by the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), the routing protocol that has quietly powered the Internet for more than three decades.
Despite underpinning virtually every online service, BGP still relies on a trust model developed in the late 1980s.
While cybersecurity has evolved dramatically, the protocol responsible for telling networks where Internet traffic should go still lacks built-in authentication, leaving the door open to route leaks, traffic interception, and BGP hijacking.
Why BGP Still Relies on Trust
The Internet is not one giant network. Instead, it consists of tens of thousands of Autonomous Systems (ASes) operated by internet service providers, cloud providers, governments, universities, enterprises, and content delivery networks. BGP allows these networks to exchange routing information so traffic can find the most efficient path from one destination to another.
The problem is that BGP generally assumes those routing announcements are legitimate. If a network claims ownership of an IP address range, neighboring networks often trust that claim and pass the information along.
That trust made sense when the Internet was a much smaller community of academic institutions and research organizations. Today, it represents one of the biggest architectural weaknesses in global Internet infrastructure.
“Most people assume the Internet automatically knows the best path to send data across the world. In reality, much of global routing still depends on trust between networks,” says Tomas Novosad, CEO and founder of Internet At My Address. “BGP was designed decades ago for a much smaller Internet, and while we’ve added protections like RPKI, adoption remains inconsistent. That leaves opportunities for both accidental route leaks and sophisticated attacks.”
A BGP hijack occurs when a network advertises IP address space that it does not legitimately control. Sometimes this happens because of a configuration error. In other cases, it is a deliberate attempt to intercept or manipulate traffic.
Once other networks accept the incorrect announcement, data can be redirected through an unauthorized network, monitored, delayed, or simply dropped altogether.
These incidents are far from theoretical. In 2008, Pakistan Telecom accidentally announced routes for YouTube while attempting to block access within the country. The incorrect announcement quickly spread across the global Internet, making YouTube inaccessible for users around the world. A decade later, attackers exploited a BGP hijack involving Amazon Route 53 to redirect users attempting to access a cryptocurrency service to malicious infrastructure, ultimately stealing digital assets from victims. Numerous routing leaks involving major cloud providers and telecommunications companies have demonstrated that even well-managed networks remain vulnerable.
The obvious question is why such a critical protocol still lacks stronger built-in security. The answer is largely one of scale. Replacing or fundamentally redesigning BGP would require coordinated changes across tens of thousands of independently operated networks worldwide, making it one of the most challenging infrastructure projects imaginable.
Instead, the industry has focused on strengthening BGP rather than replacing it. One of the most important developments has been the Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI), which allows legitimate IP address owners to cryptographically authorize which Autonomous Systems are permitted to announce their routes.
Networks performing Route Origin Validation can reject invalid announcements before they spread further across the Internet.
RPKI has significantly improved routing security, but adoption remains uneven. Many network operators have yet to publish Route Origin Authorizations, while others have not fully enabled Route Origin Validation across their infrastructure. As a result, large portions of the global Internet continue to rely on the same trust model that has existed for decades.
Industry initiatives such as Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (MANRS) have also encouraged better filtering, stronger operational practices, and greater cooperation between network operators. These efforts are improving the resilience of global routing, but participation remains voluntary and inconsistent.
Why BGP Security Matters to Every Organization
Although BGP hijacking is often viewed as a problem for internet service providers, its impact extends far beyond network operators.
Modern organizations depend on cloud services, SaaS applications, remote work infrastructure, DNS providers, and globally distributed platforms that all rely on accurate Internet routing. If traffic is diverted before it reaches its intended destination, even organizations with mature cybersecurity programs have little visibility into what happens outside their own networks.
The consequences extend beyond temporary outages. A successful BGP hijack can interrupt access to cloud platforms, redirect sensitive traffic, disrupt VPN connections, interfere with DNS resolution, and expose organizations to interception attacks before traditional security controls have an opportunity to respond.
As businesses become increasingly dependent on globally distributed infrastructure, routing security is no longer just an ISP concern. It is a business continuity and cybersecurity issue.
BGP rarely makes headlines in the same way ransomware, phishing campaigns, or data breaches do. Yet nearly every online service depends on it functioning correctly.
Continued adoption of technologies such as RPKI and stronger route validation is making the Internet more resilient, but meaningful progress depends on broad cooperation among network operators worldwide. Until routing security becomes universal rather than optional, BGP hijacking will remain one of the Internet’s most overlooked cybersecurity risks.
