China's Internet Hijacking Uncovered

Gizmodo ^ | 17 November, 2010 | Gizmodo

[James C. Bennett]

 

Cybercrime experts have found proof that China hijacked the Internet for 18 minutes last April. China absorbed 15% of the traffic from US military and civilian networks, as well as from other Western countries—a massive chunk. Nobody knows why.

We know how it happened, however. On April 8, China Telecom's routers sent messages declaring that their network channels were the fastest available at that point. Since the traffic routing is based on trust between the world's telecommunication providers, other Internet routers redirected their traffic through China's network.

Security expert Dmitri Alperovitch—VP of threat research at McAfee—says that this happens "accidentally" a few times a year, but this time it was different: The China Telecom network absorbed all the data and returned it without any significant delay. Before, this kind of accident would have resulted in communication problems, which lead experts to believe this wasn't an accident but a deliberated attempt to capture as much data as possible.

As of why this happened, nobody knows. Alperovitch added that the Chinese could have captured and manipulated data passing through their network:

This is one of the biggest - if not the biggest hijacks - we have ever seen. What happened to the traffic while it was in China? No one knows. Imagine the capability and capacity that is built into their networks. I'm not sure there was anyone else in the world who could have taken on that much traffic without breaking a sweat.

While the US government says that this is not alarming, it's certainly puzzling. It doesn't make sense for China Telecom to act in this extraordinary way without an specific objective. Perhaps it wasn't a malicious move, but it certainly seems like a test to its network power. In any case, it seems like it can happen again at any time.

I don't know about you, but I don't feel comfortable with the idea of China hijacking such a massive amount of information without explanation. [National Defense Magazine]

[Eye of Unk]

I bet some major Sian trunk lines will have some accidents in the near future.

[Eye of Unk]

I bet some major Asian trunk lines will have some accidents in the near future.

[henkster]

This was merely a live test of a weapons system.

Don’t be alarmed; they are our friends. Nothing bad can happen from it. Just keep racking up the credit card bills on their cheap toxic junk.

[Prokopton]

Since the traffic routing is based on trust between the world's telecommunication providers

This is naive and ignorant.

[November 2010]

Holy smokes Batman. Military internet communications don’t control the servers they use for it? Whisky Tango Foxtrot?

[gcraig]

One would have to presume that uncle Sam is smart enough to allow only public facing morale only traffic to route and use name resolution on the open Internet. All other communication should be routed across secure lines using private dns. If that is true then all the Chinese got is a bunch of emails and routine browsing.

if it is not true then we just got intercepted. With our current administration we are not even talking about it! Everyone apparently knows that nothing happened here, now move along...

[wildbill]

During a war emergency, they could reroute all traffic including military traffic.

[Publius6961]

I guarantee that if you are sending a check to anyone worldwide, it will get there many times faster if they are routed through me.

Guaranteed!

Just make sure the checks ae made out to "Cash."

[Publius6961]

I guarantee that if you are sending a check to anyone worldwide, it will get there many times faster if they are routed through me.

Guaranteed!

Just make sure the checks ae made out to "Cash."