The internet uses routing tables to determine how and where data is sent and received. Without accurate and reliable tables, the internet would be like a highway system with no signs or signals to direct the traffic to the right places. Of course, cybercriminals find a way to corrupt just about everything that makes the internet work, and routing is no exception. IP hijacking, or BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) hijacking, is a process in which hackers and cybercriminals take over groups of IP addresses by corrupting the routing tables that use BGP. The purpose is to redirect traffic on the public internet or on private business networks to the hijackers' own networks where they can intercept, view, and even modify the packets of data.

"This is a key first step in being able to shed light on serial hijackers' behavior," says MIT Ph.D. candidate Cecilia Testart. Hijacking IP addresses is an increasingly popular form of cyber-attack. This is done for a range of reasons, from sending spam and malware to stealing Bitcoin. It's estimated that in 2017 alone, routing incidents such as IP hijacks affected more than 10 percent of all the world's routing domains. There have been major incidents at Amazon and Google and even in nation-states -- a study last year suggested that a Chinese telecom company used the approach to gather intelligence on western countries by rerouting their Internet traffic through China.

Hijacking IP addresses is an increasingly popular form of cyber-attack. This is done for a range of reasons, from sending spam and malware to stealing Bitcoin. It's estimated that in 2017 alone, routing incidents such as IP hijacks affected more than 10 percent of all the world's routing domains. There have been major incidents at Amazon and Google and even in nation-states -- a study last year suggested that a Chinese telecom company used the approach to gather intelligence on western countries by rerouting their internet traffic through China. Existing efforts to detect IP hijacks tend to look at specific cases when they're already in process.