Efficient security mechanisms for the border gateway routing protocol

  • Authors:
  • Bradley R. Smith;J. J. Garcia-Luna-Aceves

  • Affiliations:
  • Computer Engineering Department, Jack Baskin School of Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA;Computer Engineering Department, Jack Baskin School of Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA

  • Venue:
  • Computer Communications
  • Year:
  • 1998

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Abstract

We analyze the security of the BGP routing protocol and identify a number of vulnerabilities in its design and the corresponding threats. We then present modifications to the protocol that minimize or eliminate the most significant threats. The innovation we introduce is the protection of the second-to-last hop information contained in the AS_PATH attributes by digital signatures, and the use of this predecessor information to verify the path of the selected route. With these techniques, we are able to secure complete path information in near constant space, avoiding the recursive protection mechanisms proposed for BGP in the past.