Telecom with ties to China's government misdirected traffic for two-and-a-half years.
Dan Goodin - 11/6/2018
The routing snafu involving domestic US Internet traffic coincided with a larger misdirection that started in late 2015 and lasted for about two-and-a-half years, Madory said in a blog post published Monday. The misdirection was the result of AS4134, the autonomous system belonging to China Telecom, incorrectly handling the routing announcements of AS703, Verizon's Asia Pacific AS. The mishandled routing announcements caused several international carriers—including Telia’s AS1299, Tata’s AS6453, GTT’s AS3257, and Vodafone’s AS1273—to send data destined for Verizon Asia Pacific through China Telecom, rather than using the normal multinational telecoms.
For the next 30 months or so, a large amount of traffic that used Verizon’s AS703 improperly passed through AS4134 in mainland China first. The circuitous route is reflected in the following traceroute taken on May 1, 2017:
Full Article.