It started with a lengthy email to the NANOG mailing list on 25 June 2018: independent security researcher Ronald Guilmette detailed the suspicious routing activities of a company called Bitcanal, whom he referred to as a “Hijack Factory.” In his post, Ronald detailed some of the Portuguese company’s most recent BGP hijacks and asked the question: why Bitcanal’s transit providers continue to carry its BGP hijacked routes on to the global internet?
This email kicked off a discussion that led to a concerted effort to kick this bad actor, who has hijacked with impunity for many years, off the internet.
Transit Providers
When presented with the most recent evidence of hijacks, transit providers GTT and Cogent, to their credit, immediately disconnected Bitcanal as a customer. With the loss of international transit, Bitcanal briefly reconnected via Belgian telecom BICS before being disconnected once they were informed of their new customer’s reputation.
The following graphic illustrates a BGP hijack by Bitcanal via Cogent before Cogent disconnected them. Bitcanal’s announcement of 101.124.128.0/18 (Beijing Jingdong 360 Degree E-commerce) was a more-specific hijack of 101.124.0.0/16, normally announced by AS131486 (Beijing Jingdong 360 Degree E-commerce). Continue reading