Unlearned lessons are those where the harm, attack methods, or malicious tools are demonstrated publicly and yet neglected by those who need to respond or better plan for future attacks. By 2010, reports of network traffic hijack attacks – called here Internet Protocol (IP) or Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) hijacks – had already surfaced. Most notably publicized was the China Telecom IP hijack attack in that year where 15% of the global Internet traffic was rerouted or "hijacked" through servers in China.While the scale of this original event has been debated, there is little doubt that throughout the following decade, attacks of this kind continued. Eight years later, in 2018, we reported on China Telecom using its otherwise seemingly innocent network servers to reroute (or hijack) Internet traffic through China at its will. At the time, the company had 10 "points of presence" (PoPs, locations where a company's routing equipment is located) in North America, each strategically located and available to hijack or divert network traffic through China from North America. The 2018 paper drew significant attention to the problem by the general public (through popular media outlets), the cybersecurity and research communities, and various stakeholders in western nations' governments, and yet the lesson is still unlearned by many of the same nations currently being victimized by China Telecom illicit activity and other BGP hijacks.
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