The study found that many internet users live in regions where attackers could just target one or a few companies can cripple the entire nation's internet access. Due to the topology of the Internet, to find weak links that, if compromised, would expose an entire nation’s traffic. But a large portion of the Internet doesn’t function with peering agreements for the network.
This structure of the internet can differ dramatically. In some places like the United States, many internet service providers (ISPs) compete and offer services to many users. These ISPs have networks that are directly connected to one another and exchange content; a process called direct peering.
Many of whom are in the global south, internet users, reply to just a few ISPs for internet access. And in some of these countries, one ISP serves many of the users. These providers often rely on a limited number of companies to get access to the global internet and internet traffic from other countries. This could mean that attackers would only need to target one or a few of these companies, called transit autonomous systems, to cripple an entire nation’s internet access. In countries like Cuba and Sierra Leone, one transit autonomous system provider provides a connection for almost all the users in the country; presenting a worst-case scenario. In other nations, many of them still developing countries, most users rely on a handful of providers for Internet access, and one of these providers serves an overwhelming majority of users. Not only that, but those providers rely on a limited number of companies called transit autonomous systems to get access to the global Internet and traffic from other countries. Researchers found that often these transit autonomous system providers are state owned. According to computer scientists at the University of California San Diego, who surveyed 75 countries, 34 nations have transit ecosystems that render them particularly exposed, where a single autonomous system is privy to traffic destined to over 40 per cent of their IP addresses.
In many developed countries, like the US, many Internet providers compete to provide services for many users. These networks are directly connected to one another and exchange content, a process known as direct peering. All the providers can also plug directly into the world’s Internet infrastructure.
“But a large portion of the Internet doesn’t function with peering agreements for network connectivity,”
This, of course, makes countries with this type of Internet infrastructure particularly vulnerable to attacks because all that is needed is to cripple a little transit autonomous systems. These countries, of course, are also vulnerable if a main Internet provider experiences outages.
In the worst case scenario, one transit autonomous system serves all users. Cuba and Sierra Leone are close to this state of affairs. By contrast, Bangladesh went from only two to over 30 system providers, after the government opened that sector of the economy to private enterprise.
This underlines, the researchers noted, the importance of government regulation when it comes to the number of Internet providers and transit autonomous systems available in a country.
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