Securing Internet Routing: Measuring and Improving the Resource Public Key Infrastructure

The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) underpins global Internet routing among thousands of Autonomous Systems (ASes) but lacks built-in security. The Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) enhances BGP security by verifying route authenticity through Route Origin Validation (ROV). However, its effectiveness remains limited by partial adoption, misconfigurations, and collateral routing effects. This dissertation conducts a comprehensive study of RPKI deployment and proposes practical methods to strengthen ROV security. First, we present RoVista, a scalable measurement framework that leverages in-the-wild RPKI-invalid prefixes to assess real-world ROV enforcement across 28,000 ASes. Second, we identify and mitigate collateral damage, where ROV-enabled networks can still misroute traffic via vulnerable next hops. We design ImpROV, a lightweight mechanism that proactively avoids such paths, reducing hijack risks with minimal computational overhead. Finally, we uncover systematic causes of RPKI-invalid prefixes—chiefly misconfigurations in IP leasing and transit services—and quantify their impact on routing reliability and hijack detection. These contributions provide the foundation for the development of scalable RPKI measurement techniques, new strategies for mitigating collateral damage, and actionable recommendations for improving ROA management practices.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Computer Science & Applications

Department dc:contributor.department

Computer Science and#38; Applications

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Li, Weitong

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Chung, Taejoong Tijay

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Ji, Bo
• Yao, Danfeng
• Giotsas, Vasilis
• Viswanath, Bimal

• Internet Measurement
• Routing Security
• BGP
• RPKI

Statement dc:rights

• Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:44906

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/139895