Google servers caused a massive Internet shutdown in the whole country
By Prempal Singh
On Friday, August 25, users in Japan faced a massive malfunction in the Internet. The reason was Google’s servers, which carried out the so-called BGP hijacking or IP hijacking.
Currently, the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the main protocol for dynamic routing in the Internet. The protocol is based on the messages of Internet providers about the availability of IP-addresses in their networks. The BGP hijacking attack is a hijacking of an IP address group by modifying the routing tables supported by this protocol. BGP hijacking occurs when the ISP mistakenly suggests IP addresses not from their networks.
In the routing tables, each ISP is identified by the AS number. Last Friday, Google, which has its own AS number, has mistakenly offered IP addresses from networks of Japanese operators.Internet service providers, including Verizon, began redirecting traffic to Google’s servers intended for Japanese operators, who certainly did not know what to do with it. As a result, users in Japan were faced with a massive malfunction in the operation of many online services. Users outside the country could not connect to networks and shops operating in Japan (for example, to Nintendo networks).
The problem was fixed in 40 minutes, but it was enough to sow panic. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan initiated an investigation into the incident. What caused the error, human factor or technical failure, is not yet known.
An autonomous system (AS) on the Internet is a system of IP networks and routers controlled by one or several operators that have a single routing policy with the Internet. A unique AS number is assigned to each AS for use in BGP routing. As of the beginning of 2017, more than 56,000 autonomous systems were represented in the global routing table.