Secure Border Gateway Protocol Research Articles

Towards Blockchain-Based Secure BGP Routing, Challenges and Future Research Directions

Towards Blockchain-Based Secure BGP Routing, Challenges and Future Research Directions

SDBGPChain: A decentralized low complexity framework to detect and prevent the BGPattacks using SDN with smart contract based Dendrimer tree blockchain

The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) helps to exchange the information over the internet. However, BGP is susceptible to malicious attacks and misconfigurations meanwhile BGP does not focus on providing security during routing information advertisement. The secure BGP environment provides constant routing services on the internet, but existing works does not provide an optimal solution for BGP router security. To overcome these issues, we proposed decentralized low complexity framework for providing security to BGP attacks using deep learning and blockchain technologies. The proposed SDBGPChain (SDN based BGP using dendrimer tree blockchain) model whereas the SDN provides network management, flexibility and scalability for BGP environment, the proposed work includes three processes such as entity authentication, low complexity BGP attack detection and prevention, and deep learning-based route update validation. Initially, users and BGP routers are authenticated using Enhanced Blowfish and Elliptical Curve Cryptography (EB-ECC) which generated the unique key using EB algorithm and the unique is encrypted by enhanced ECC for improving security. Every Autonomous System (AS) is constructed as a graph structure using Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) which improves the scalability and interoperability of the network. Secondly, we perform BGP attack detection using Dual Agent based Twin Actor Twin Delayed Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (DA-T2TD3) algorithm by performing both proactive and reactive methods. Finally, we perform route update validation by Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) by considering update message tuples which validate the updates by identifying misconfigurations and errors in the updated messages. Here, updated messages are passed to the blockchain for validation using the DiemBFT consensus algorithm which improves high security. The simulation of the proposed SDBGPChain model is conducted by OMNET++ simulation tool, and the performance of this work is evaluated based on various performance metrics such as Packet drop ratio (0.22), Throughput (39.8 bits/sec), Block validation time (20.2 s), Detection accuracy ((no. of attacks 92.5%) and (no of anomalies 93%)), and Network traffic (27.6%) which proved that the proposed work achieved superior performance compared to state-of-the-art works.

RouteChain: Towards Blockchain-based secure and efficient BGP routing

Routing on the Internet is defined among autonomous systems (ASes) based on a weak trust model where it is assumed that ASes are honest. While this trust model strengthens the connectivity among ASes, it also results in an attack surface that can be exploited to hijack the routing paths. One such attack is known as the BGP prefix hijacking, in which a malicious AS broadcasts IP prefixes that belong to a target AS, thereby hijacking its traffic. In this paper, we propose RouteChain: a blockchain-based secure BGP routing system that counters BGP hijacking and maintains a consistent view of the Internet routing paths. Towards that, we leverage provenance assurance and tamper-proof properties of blockchains to augment trust among ASes. We group ASes based on their geographical (network) proximity and construct a bi-hierarchical blockchain model that detects false prefixes prior to their spread over the Internet. We evaluate RouteChain using three different consensus protocols and show its effectiveness by drawing a case study with the Youtube hijacking of 2008. Our results show that RouteChain can efficiently detect false prefix announcements and prevent BGP attacks over the Internet.

Inter-Domain Prefix and Route Validation Using Fast and Scalable DAG Based Distributed Ledger for Secure BGP Routing

Inter-Domain Prefix and Route Validation Using Fast and Scalable DAG Based Distributed Ledger for Secure BGP Routing

Path stability in partially deployed secure BGP routing

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), as the current de-facto routing protocol connecting various cooperating domains on the Internet, did not consider security when it was originally designed. With the expansion of the Internet, security is increasingly valued and many BGP enhancement mechanisms are proposed and experimented. Some of them like BGPsec have been standardized and promoted by the IETF. However, the deployment of these inter-domain secure routing mechanisms is subject to many economic and political restrictions. Consequently, there will be a long period of partial deployment, during which instability of BGP can be observed. Specifically, when some networks start deploying secure BGP mechanisms, they may be involved in some temporary or persistent route oscillations. In this paper, we systematically study the stability problem induced by partially deployed secure BGP mechanisms. We analyze the characteristics of topology and routing strategies when BGP oscillations will be introduced. In particular, we propose dispute chain, a derived structure of dispute wheel proposed in Griffin et al. (2002), to formally analyze this problem. Based on dispute chain, we analyze how different security adoption strategies can cause BGP oscillations under the general Gao–Rexford model. Our analysis shows that, even in a situation when there is no dispute wheel, dispute chains may widely appear, indicating that BGP oscillation problems will be introduced when security mechanisms are casually deployed, affecting the security and quality of inter-domain communications. To avoid possible oscillations, we also propose some deployment guidelines from different perspectives of the operator and the Internet, so that a wider deployment of security mechanisms will not blindly disrupt the Internet.

Design and Implementation of InBlock—A Distributed IP Address Registration System

The current mechanism to secure Border Gateway Protocol relies on the resource public key infrastructure (RPKI) for route origin authorization. The RPKI implements a hierarchical model that intrinsically makes lower layers in the hierarchy susceptible to errors and abuses from entities placed in higher layers. In this article, we present InBlock, a distributed autonomous organization that provides decentralized management of IP addresses based on blockchain, embedding an alternative trust model to the hierarchical one currently implemented by the RPKI. By leveraging on blockchain technology, InBlock requires consensus among the involved parties to change existent prefix allocation information. InBlock also fulfills the same objectives as the current IP address allocation system, i.e., uniqueness, fairness, conservation, aggregation, registration, and minimized overhead. InBlock is implemented as a set of blockchain smart contracts in Ethereum, performing all the functions needed for the management of a global pool of addresses without human intervention. Any entity may request an allocation of addresses to the InBlock registry by solely performing a (crypto) currency transfer to the InBlock. We describe our InBlock implementation and we perform several experiments to show that it enables fast address registering and incurs in very low management costs.

Design and performance analysis of an efficient single flow IP traceback technique in the AS level

SummaryNetwork security is a major challenge for big and small companies. The Internet topology is vulnerable to Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks as it provides an opportunity to an attacker to send a large volume of traffic to a victim, which can limit its Internet availability. The main problem in the prevention of the DDoS attack, also known as the flooding attack, is how to find the source of traffic flooding. This is because the spoofed source Internet protocol (IP) address of packets is not affected on its routing. As a result, IP traceback techniques are proposed to find the source of attack and in general, to find the source of any packet. Doing so, the IP traceback techniques can help us to prevent the Denial of Service (DoS) and DDoS attacks. In this paper, we propose an efficient Single Flow IP Traceback (SFT) technique in the Autonomous System (AS) level. Furthermore, a path signature generation algorithm is presented for detecting and filtering the spoofed traffic. Our solution assumes a secure Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)‐routing infrastructure for exchanging authenticated messages in order to learn the path signatures, and it uses a marking algorithm in the flow level for transmission of the traceback messages. Because in our technique less bits are required to mark the IP header packet, the required storage space for any unique path to the victim is significantly decreased. Compared with the other existing techniques, the obtained results demonstrate that our technique has the least marking rate, overhead processing on the middle nodes, and destination's computational cost while offering the highest accuracy in tracebacking attack.

BGP with BGPsec: Attacks and Countermeasures

The BGP suffers from numerous security vulnerabilities, for example, fake routing updates incurring traffic hijacking and interception. The BGPsec protocol is supposed to fix these vulnerabilities by attesting routing updates. Although the BGP security problem has been extensively studied, the security of BGP with BGPsec is not well studied yet. We argue that even secured with BGPsec, BGP still has inherent security vulnerabilities. In particular, traffic can still be hijacked. In this article, we systematically study the vulnerabilities of BGP with BGPsec. We find that the protocol still cannot achieve the desired security guarantee of inter-domain routing. In particular, it is unable to ensure correct packet delivery on the Internet. We measure the impacts of the vulnerabilities by using a real data trace, and discuss enhancements to the design and the implementation of the secure BGP protocol, which allows BGP to achieve strong secure inter-domain routing.

A Program Logic for Verifying Secure Routing Protocols

The Internet, as it stands today, is highly vulnerable to attacks. However, little has been done to understand and verify the formal security guarantees of proposed secure inter-domain routing protocols, such as Secure BGP (S-BGP). In this paper, we develop a sound program logic for SANDLog-a declarative specification language for secure routing protocols for verifying properties of these protocols. We prove invariant properties of SANDLog programs that run in an adversarial environment. As a step towards automated verification, we implement a verification condition generator (VCGen) to automatically extract proof obligations. VCGen is integrated into a compiler for SANDLog that can generate executable protocol implementations; and thus, both verification and empirical evaluation of secure routing protocols can be carried out in this unified framework. To validate our framework, we encoded several proposed secure routing mechanisms in SANDLog, verified variants of path authenticity properties by manually discharging the generated verification conditions in Coq, and generated executable code based on SANDLog specification and ran the code in simulation.

Invalidating Idealized BGP Security Proposals and Countermeasures

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is vulnerable to routing attacks because of the lack of inherent verification mechanism. Several secure BGP schemes have been proposed to prevent routing attacks by leveraging cryptographic verification of BGP routing updates. In this paper, we present a new type of attacks, called TIGER, which aims to invalidate the “proven” security of these secure BGP schemes and allow ASes to announce forged routes even under full deployment of any existing secure BGP proposal. By launching TIGER attacks, malicious ASes can easily generate and announce forged routes which can be successfully verified by the existing secure BGP schemes. Furthermore, TIGER attacks can evade existing routing anomaly detection schemes by guaranteeing routing data-plane availability and consistency of control- and data-plane. Toward a new securing BGP scheme, we propose Anti-TIGER to detect and defend against TIGER attacks. Anti-TIGER enables robust TIGER detection by collaborations between ASes. In particular, we leverage Spread Spectrum Communication technique to watermark certain special probing packets, which manifest the existence of TIGER attacks. Anti-TIGER does not require any modifications in routing data-plane, therefore it is easy to deploy and incrementally deployable. We evaluate the effectiveness of TIGER and Anti-TIGER by experiments with real AS topologies of the Internet. Our experiment results show that TIGER attacks can successfully hijack a considerable number of prefixes. In the meanwhile, Anti-TIGER can achieve 100 percent detection ratio of TIGER attacks.

3S: three-signature path authentication for BGP security

Because of the lack of mechanism to verify a route's path authorization, border gateway protocol BGP has been disrupted by route hijacking for decades. Although several secure inter-domain protocols have been proposed during the past years, such as secure BGP S-BGP and BGPsec, they all have serious performance issues in both time and space cost, preventing their further deployment in the practical Internet. Statistical results from the real Internet reveal that multiple Internet protocol prefixes could often been announced along with the same AS path/sub-path to its downstream autonomous systems; hence, the route announcements can be aggregated at the level of prefix. In light of this, we propose a three-signature path authentication 3S scheme to improve the performance of path authentication. We first introduce the concept of AS, to reflect a cluster of prefixes that are announced along a common path/sub-path. Then we aggregate those prefixes into an atom and only need to sign the first route announcement of a virtual AS instead of single prefixes; thus, it can reduce the number of cryptographic operations significantly. We evaluate the performance of 3S scheme in both theoretical and experimental ways; the results have shown that our proposed scheme is more efficient yet without losing security capabilities as existing methods such as S-BGP and BGPsec. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Achieving inter-domain routing security based on distributed translator trust model

To resolve the difficulties in deployment of the classic security solution S-BGP (Secure Border Gateway Protocol), the Translator Trust Model (TTM) for a new solution SE-BGP (Security Enhanced BGP) was proposed to transform the centralized deployment mode of S-BGP to distributed mode. However, the trust (attestations of routing information) translation of TTM only depends on a single hub node and this results in severe threats for the inter-domain routing system. To overcome the deficiencies of TTM, in this paper we improve TTM to Distributed TTM (DTTM) by expanding the single hub node to a set of selected multiple hub nodes; in our DTTM, the task of attestations is distributed over multiple hub nodes instead of on a single hub node. In order to make the hub nodes respond to the case of single node failures, we design a restoration mechanism to recover the network based on the neighbour-ring structure. Besides, we develop Cooperative Secure BGP (CSBGP) to realize DTTM in BGP. In comparison with SE-BGP, our experimental results show that CS-BGP achieves an improved scalability, reduced convergence time and enhanced security.

Sequential aggregate signatures with lazy verification from trapdoor permutations

Sequential aggregate signature schemes allow n signers, in order, to sign a message each, at a lower total cost than the cost of n individual signatures. We present a sequential aggregate signature scheme based on trapdoor permutations (e.g., RSA). Unlike prior such proposals, our scheme does not require a signer to retrieve the keys of other signers and verify the aggregate-so-far before adding its own signature. Indeed, we do not even require a signer to know the public keys of other signers!Moreover, for applications that require signers to verify the aggregate anyway, our schemes support lazy verification: a signer can add its own signature to an unverified aggregate and forward it along immediately, postponing verification until load permits or the necessary public keys are obtained. This is especially important for applications where signers must access a large, secure, and current cache of public keys in order to verify messages. The price we pay is that our signature grows slightly with the number of signers.We report a technical analysis of our scheme (which is provably secure in the random oracle model), a detailed implementation-level specification, and implementation results based on RSA and OpenSSL. To evaluate the performance of our scheme, we focus on the target application of BGPsec (formerly known as Secure BGP), a protocol designed for securing the global Internet routing system. There is a particular need for lazy verification with BGPsec, since it is run on routers that must process signatures extremely quickly, while being able to access tens of thousands of public keys. We compare our scheme to the algorithms currently proposed for use in BGPsec, and find that our signatures are considerably shorter than nonaggregate RSA (with the same sign and verify times) and have an order of magnitude faster verification than nonaggregate ECDSA, although ECDSA has shorter signatures when the number of signers is small.

A Novel Approach for Secure Routing Through BGP Using Symmetric Key

The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the path vector routing protocol that connects different autonomous systems.. These ASes have unique integer numbers which assign by IANA organization. The traditional BGP protocol is not sufficient to provide security and authentication for AS path and verification of AS number ownership as well as network IP prefix. The BGP remains vulnerable to various types of misconfiguration by users and attacks. Many secure BGP algorithms have been proposed but complexity of algorithm and attack on that models still remain open problem. In this paper, we propose an efficient model for SBGP; initially establish trust relationship between BGP peers. In this process BGP use TCP protocol for reliable communication. The BGP routers will attempt to create secure BGP session by exchanging BGP Open messages. During this Open messages master BGP router generate private key with help of cyclic shifting of ASCII of password called cyclic shift algorithm. Then hash of this private key send towards neighbour. Instead of key exchange, we use hashing algorithm, we generate hash of only key through SHA-1. This hash code for private key sent with Open messages during session establishment. When this Open messages receive by neighbor BGP routers, first it generate key using same password with same algorithm & generate hash code for same and then compare both hash code. If it matches then establish secure session with master BGP router & accept the Autonomous system number which is sent by master router during Open Messages. In this manner both BGP speakers make trust relationship between each other & then exchange route UPDATE within secure channel. If hash code at receiver end does not match then simply receiving BGP router discard Open messages and does not make connection with unauthorized AS number. If malicious router wants to inject false route or false ip prefix then it does not create secure session by lack of secure private key. So malicious router does not participate in above BGP routing process.

Sign what you really care about – Secure BGP AS-paths efficiently

The de facto inter-domain routing protocol, Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), plays a critical role in the reliability of the Internet routing system. However, the system may also be devastated by forged BGP routes that are generated by malicious attacks or mis-configurations. This security problem has attracted considerable attention, and although several solutions has been proposed, none of them have been widely deployed due to weaknesses such as high computational cost or potential security vulnerability. This paper proposes Fast Secure BGP (FS-BGP), an efficient mechanism that can secure AS-paths and prevent prefix hijacking by signing critical AS-path segments. We prove that FS-BGP achieves a similar level of security as S-BGP, but with much higher efficiency. Compared with S-BGP, the cost of signing and verification in FS-BGP can be reduced by orders of magnitude, as demonstrated in our experiments using BGP UPDATE data collected from real backbone routers. Indeed, the signing and verification can be accomplished as fast as the most bursty BGP UPDATE arrivals, which implies that FS-BGP will hardly delay the propagation of routing information.

Enhancing the Trust of Internet Routing With Lightweight Route Attestation

The weak trust model in Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) introduces severe vulnerabilities for Internet routing including active malicious attacks and unintended misconfigurations. Although various secure BGP solutions have been proposed, the complexity of security enforcement and data-plane attacks still remain open problems. We propose TBGP, a trusted BGP scheme aiming to achieve high authenticity of Internet routing with a simple and lightweight attestation mechanism. TBGP introduces a set of route update and withdrawal rules that, if correctly enforced by each router, can guarantee the authenticity and integrity of route information that is announced to other routers in the Internet. To verify this enforcement, an attestation service running on each router provides interfaces for a neighboring router to challenge the integrity of its routing stack, enforced rules, and the attestation service itself. If this attestation succeeds, the neighboring router updates its routing table or announces the route to its neighbors, following the same rules. Thus, a router on a routing path only needs to verify one neighbor's routing status to ensure that the route information is valid. Through this, TBGP builds a transitive trust relationship among all routers on a routing path. We implement a prototype of TBGP to investigate its practicality. In our implementation, we use identity-based signature and trusted computing techniques to further reduce the complexity of security operations. Our security analysis and performance study shows that TBGP can achieve the security goals of BGP with significantly better convergence performance and lower computation overhead than existing secure BGP solutions.

Let the market drive deployment

With a cryptographic root-of-trust for Internet routing(RPKI [17]) on the horizon, we can finally start planning the deployment of one of the secure interdomain routing protocols proposed over a decade ago (Secure BGP [22], secure origin BGP [37]). However, if experience with IPv6 is any indicator, this will be no easy task. Security concerns alone seem unlikely to provide sufficient local incentive to drive the deployment process forward. Worse yet, the security benefits provided by the S*BGP protocols do not even kick in until a large number of ASes have deployed them. Instead, we appeal to ISPs' interest in increasing revenue-generating traffic. We propose a strategy that governments and industry groups can use to harness ISPs' local business objectives and drive global S*BGP deployment. We evaluate our deployment strategy using theoretical analysis and large-scale simulations on empirical data. Our results give evidence that the market dynamics created by our proposal can transition the majority of the Internet to S*BGP.

Keychain-Based Signatures for Securing BGP

As a major component of Internet routing infrastructure, the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is vulnerable to malicious attacks. While Secure BGP (S-BGP) provides a comprehensive framework to secure BGP, its high computational cost and low incremental deployment benefits seriously impede its wide usage in practice. Using a lightweight symmetric signature scheme, SPV is much faster than S-BGP. However, the speed boost comes at the price of prohibitively large signatures. Aggregated path authentication reduces the overhead of securing BGP in terms of both time and space, but the speed improvement is still limited by public key computation. In this paper, we propose a keychain-based signature scheme called KC-x. It has low CPU and memory overheads and provides strong incentive for incremental deployment on the Internet. As a generic framework, KC-x has the flexibility of using different signature algorithms, which can even co-exist in a hybrid deployment. We investigate two implementations of KC-x: KC-RSA based on RSA and KC-MT based on Merkle hash tree. Using real BGP workloads, our experimental results show that KC-RSA is as efficient as SAS-V (the most efficient software approach for aggregated path authentication), and KC-MT is even three times faster than SPV with 40% smaller signatures. Through the hybrid deployment of KC-MT and KC-RSA, KC-x can achieve both small signature and high processing rate for BGP speakers.

On interdomain routing security and pretty secure BGP (psBGP)

It is well known that the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), the IETF standard interdomain routing protocol, is vulnerable to a variety of attacks, and that a single misconfigured or malicious BGP speaker could result in large-scale service disruption. In this paper, we present Pretty Secure BGP (psBGP) ---a proposal for securing BGP, including an architectural overview, design details for significant aspects, and preliminary security and operational analysis. psBGP differs from other security proposals (e.g., S-BGP and soBGP) in that it makes use of a single-level PKI for AS number authentication, a decentralized trust model for verifying the propriety of IP prefix origin, and a rating-based stepwise approach for AS_PATH (integrity) verification. psBGP trades off the strong security guarantees of S-BGP for presumed-simpler operation, e.g., using a PKI with a simple structure, with a small number of certificate types, and of manageable size. psBGP is designed to successfully defend against various (nonmalicious and malicious) threats from uncoordinated BGP speakers, and to be incrementally deployed with incremental benefits.

Modeling adoptability of secure BGP protocol

Despite the existence of several secure BGP routing protocols, there has been little progress to date on actual adoption. Although feasibility for widespread adoption remains the greatest hurdle for BGP security, there has been little quantitative research into what properties contribute the most to the adoptability of a security scheme. In this paper, we provide a model for assessing the adoptability of a secure BGP routing protocol. We perform this evaluation by simulating incentives compatible adoption decisions of ISPs on the Internet under a variety of assumptions. Our results include: (a) the existence of a sharp threshold, where, if the cost of adoption is below the threshold, complete adoption takes place, while almost no adoption takes place above the threshold; (b) under a strong attacker model, adding a single hop of path authentication to origin authentication yields similar adoptability characteristics as a full path security scheme; (c) under a weaker attacker model, adding full path authentication (e.g., via S-BGP [9]) significantly improves the adoptability of BGP security over weaker path security schemes such as soBGP [16]. These results provide insight into the development of more adoptable secure BGP protocols and demonstrate the importance of studying adoptability of protocols.