China Re-Routed US Internet Traffic for 2.5 Years

For two and a half years China Telecom re-routed a lot of U.S. internet traffic to China. It’s not clear if it was intentional or a mistake.

As the following traceroute from December 3, 2017 shows, traffic originating in Los Angeles first passed through a China Telecom facility in Hangzhou, China, before reaching its final stop in Washington, DC. The problematic route, which is visualized in the graphic above, was the result of China Telecom inserting itself into the inbound path of Verizon Asian Pacific.

Now, it could be a bug in the internet’s Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). Or it could have been malicious (ALLEGEDLY) seeing how Washington D.C.’s traffic was compromised.

Check It Out: China Re-Routed US Internet Traffic for 2.5 Years

One thought on “China Re-Routed US Internet Traffic for 2.5 Years

  • China is good at hacking and this proves it very well. Without being detected all these years too. Smart. For anyone reading that thinks this is an accident just hasn’t been paying attention and/or doesn’t know China and the word espionage go together like a hand in a glove.

    Thanks for the story Andrew.

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