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Feds Plot Massive Internet Router Security Upgrade

Posted by timothy on from the let's-like-totally-upgrade dept.

BobB-nw writes "The U.S. federal government is accelerating its efforts to secure the Internet's routing system, with plans this year for the Department of Homeland Security to quadruple its investment in research aimed at adding digital signatures to router communications. DHS says its routing security effort will prevent routing hijack attacks as well as accidental misconfigurations of routing data. The effort is nicknamed BGPSEC because it will secure the Internet's core routing protocol known as the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). (A separate federal effort is under way to bolster another Internet protocol, DNS, and it is called DNSSEC.) Douglas Maughan, program manager for cybersecurity R&D in the DHS Science and Technology Directorate, says his department's spending on router security will rise from around $600,000 per year during the last three years to approximately $2.5 million per year starting in 2009."

6 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. It's a plot! by PixelThis · · Score: 5, Funny

    This plan to upgrade router security is a plot? Are there some nefarious evil masterminds behind it?

    1. Re:It's a plot! by MooseMuffin · · Score: 4, Funny

      Wrong meaning of plot. This is referring to a small patch of land.

    2. Re:It's a plot! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      I think they're just enabling MD5 on the BGP sessions.

      And everybody knows that MD5 hashes are secure, so problem solved!

    3. Re:It's a plot! by CarpetShark · · Score: 2, Funny

      This plan to upgrade router security is a plot? Are there some nefarious evil masterminds behind it?

      No, just a bunch of colored pens.

  2. Re:Question for the experts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    If you didn't do it I could (potentially) spoof updates and say "this network exists here now" and all the information destined for that network would then be routed to me to packet-sniff to my heart's content.

    Couldn't you just not do that? Why do the Feds have to roll out a $600k program because of you? That is taxpayers money for gods sake!

  3. U.S owns the internet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    The U.S. federal government is accelerating its efforts to secure the Internet's routing system

    Did I miss something?

    I thought China had all the control.