Google Internet Traffic Is Briefly Misdirected Through Russia, China
November 12 2018 - 7:49PM
Dow Jones News
By Drew FitzGerald and Robert McMillan
Google services were temporarily unreachable for some users
after some traffic intended to reach the web giant was rerouted
through other networks.
In a notice posted on Monday on its website, Google said it had
resolved the issue as of 2:35 p.m. PT, and that its services were
operating as expected. The Alphabet Inc. unit said it would conduct
an internal investigation but that it believed the root cause of
the issue was external to Google.
Internet research firm ThousandEyes said incorrect routing
instructions redirected some traffic intended for Google's
addresses to Russian network operator TransTelekom, China Telecom
Corp. and MainOne, a provider in Nigeria.
"All of Google's public-facing edge seems to be getting broadly
affected, " ThousandEyes marketing executive Alex Henthorne-Iwane
said. "Most of the traffic is being dropped at China Telecom."
On Twitter and on online forums, some users complained that they
couldn't access Google's services, but the scope of the outage
wasn't clear. Reached Monday afternoon, a Google spokesman was
unable to immediately comment on the outage.
Network engineers have warned for years that online platforms
are vulnerable to network-based attacks that send data widely off
course. Such attacks are possible because large network-service
providers exchange traffic through a system that is largely based
on mutual trust through protocols nearly as old as the internet
itself.
Failures such as the one Google experienced on Monday can occur
because of a technical error -- when a network engineer
misconfigures systems, for example -- or they could also represent
a malicious attempt to intercept data, network experts say.
If they have access to a large enough network operator, hackers
can alter network maps stored on core internet routers through a
system known as border gateway protocol, or BGP. Using BGP flaws to
reroute data could let a hacker steal information, eavesdrop on
traffic or send information into cyber oblivion, security
researchers say.
Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com and Robert
McMillan at Robert.Mcmillan@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 12, 2018 19:34 ET (00:34 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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