BGP Vortex: Update Message Floods Can Create Internet Instabilities
Felix Stöger
34th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security '25) · Day 2 · Network Security 2: Routing and DoS
The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) forms the foundational routing fabric of the internet, orchestrating how data traverses autonomous systems (ASes) globally. For decades, the stability and convergence of BGP have been a cornerstone assumption, particularly underpinned by the seminal work of Gao and Rexford in 2001. This research, presented at USENIX Security 2025 by Felix Stöger and his co-authors, critically re-evaluates these long-held assumptions, revealing a profound vulnerability that can induce persistent and widespread internet instabilities.
AI review
Stöger et al. don't just find a bug — they invalidate a 24-year-old convergence proof that the entire internet's routing stability rests on. Three legitimate BGP updates, no spoofing, no malformed packets, and you can put 96% of the internet's ASes into a blender. This is the kind of research that makes IETF working groups cancel vacations.