[AusNOG] Interesting - How a Router's Missed Range Check Nearly Crashed the Internet

[Mark Smith]

Mark McKibbin wrote:
> Mikrotik may be Latvian but the owner is a Texan (just like George 
> Bush)…..explains everything.
> 
>  

This is all pretty xenophobic guys. I'd thought people on this list 
would be smarter than that. Imperfection is a human trait, not one 
attributable to a country or race.

> 
> Mark McKibbin
> 
> DCS Internet
> 
> P Please consider the trees that will die if you choose to print this email
> 
>  
> 
> *From:* ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net 
> [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] *On Behalf Of *Skeeve Stevens
> *Sent:* Monday, 23 February 2009 4:00 AM
> *To:* ausnog at lists.ausnog.net; NZNOG at list.waikato.ac.nz
> *Subject:* [AusNOG] Interesting - How a Router's Missed Range Check 
> Nearly Crashed the Internet
> 
>  
> 
>  From the front page of Slashdot:
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Barlaam writes "A bug by router vendor A (omitting a range check from a 
> critical field in the configuration interface) tickled a bug from router 
> vendor B (dropping BGP sessions when processing some ASPATH attributes 
> with length very close to 256), causing a ripple effect that caused 
> widespread global routing instability last week. The flaw lay dormant 
> until one of vendor A's systems was deployed in an autonomous system 
> whose ASN, modulo 256, was greater than 250. At that point, the Internet 
> was one typo away from disaster. Other router vendors, who were not 
> affected by the bug, happily propagated the trigger message to every 
> vulnerable system on the planet in about 30 seconds. Few people 
> appreciate how fragile and unsecured the Internet's trust-based critical 
> infrastructure really is — this is just the latest example." Vendor A, 
> in this case, is a Latvian router vendor called MikroTik.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Is this just the 4byte ASN thing from months ago or something new?
> 
>  
> 
> I knew there was a reason I hated Mikrotik’s so much.
> 
>  
> 
> --
> 
> Skeeve Stevens, CEO/Technical Director
> 
> eintellego Pty Ltd - The Networking Specialists
> 
> skeeve at eintellego.net / www.eintellego.net <http://www.eintellego.net>
> 
> Phone: 1300 753 383, Fax: (+612) 8572 9954
> 
> Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 / skype://skeeve
> 
> --
> 
> NOC, NOC, who's there?
> 
>  
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