A Study of Prefix Hijacking and Interception in the Internet

There have been many incidents of prefix hijacking in the Internet. The hijacking AS can blackhole the hijacked traffic. Alternatively, it can transparently intercept the hijacked traffic by forwarding it onto the owner. This paper presents a study of such prefix hijacking and interception with the following contributions: the authors present a methodology for prefix interception; they estimate the fraction of traffic to any prefix that can be hijacked and intercepted in the Internet today. The interception methodology is implemented and used to intercept real traffic to the prefix. They conduct a detailed study to detect ongoing prefix interception.