Website-Targeted False Content Injection by Network Operators

It is known that some network operators inject false content into users’ network traffic. Yet all previous works that investigate this practice focus on edge ISPs (Internet Service Providers), namely, those that provide Internet access to end users. Edge ISPs that inject false content affect their customers only. However, in this work we show that not only edge ISPs may inject false content, but also core network operators. These operators can potentially alter the traffic of all Internet users who visit predetermined websites. We expose this practice by inspecting a large amount of traffic originating from several networks. Our study is based on the observation that the forged traffic is injected in an out-of-band manner: the network operators do not update the network packets in-path, but rather send the forged packets without dropping the legitimate ones. This creates a race between the forged and the legitimate packets as they arrive to the end user. This race can be identi�...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2016
• Where: CORR
• Authors: Gabi Nakibly, Jaime Schcolnik, Yossi Rubin
• Keywords: CORR 2016, Education