[HEFICED news release] In September, South African media revealed an elaborate fraud scheme where IPv4 addresses reportedly worth at least $30 million on the second-hand market were stolen or misappropriated from large multinational companies based in South Africa.
The registered owners were mostly not
aware of any violation of their properties, as the attackers exploited
complex ownership structures. In addition, the legitimate owners were
often unfamiliar with the considerable asset value presented by their
stocks of IPv4 addresses.
Among the address sets stolen were a number of especially valuable
âlegacy blocksâ, sets of IP addresses that were assigned before the
establishment of regional internet registries (RIRs) and are thus
completely free to use.
âWe often notice that companies that obtained large pools of IPv4s
when they were still readily available are not aware that they are now
quite valuable. Thousands of addresses used to be free, now a single
legacy address can be worth as much as $30,â comments Vincentas Grinius,
CEO of Heficed, a company offering network infrastructure solutions
that center on the procurement and management of IP addresses.
IPv4 fraud has become an increasingly pressing issue in the past
decade. This is because the omnipresent IP addresses are actually a
finite resource. Their original sources, the RIRs serving a continental
region each, have all nearly run out of original, free-to-use address
blocks within the last ten years, with AFRINIC being the only one still
allocating them with relative ease.
Since IPs are localized, however, African addresses only serve
limited use â to operate a server within Europe or America, a user needs
a European or American IP. This is especially relevant for
latency-dependent customers, like those who operate within fields of
tight competition.
Whoever needs IPv4 addresses thus has to obtain them on the
second-hand market. Like in any commodity market, fraud constitutes a
problem, too.
Even in highly-regulated jurisdictions like the United States,
fraudsters still go after the high-value resource. With proper attention
and dedication, even stolen addresses can be recovered, but this often
takes considerable time and legal investments. Most importantly, it is
often impossible for large-scale corporate owners to properly track IPv4
ownership themselves.
âAs with all complex, immaterial goods, like stocks or virtual
assets, intermediary network infrastructure providers fulfil more than
just the function of traders. They market, manage and care for their
clientsâ resources,â says Grinius.
Dealing with technicalities like IP addresses is often the least
priority large companies have, if they are aware of the issue at all.
âThe news from South Africa clearly shows that oversight is the main
issue. Mostly without notice, IPv4s have become a hugely profitable
opportunity that can be utilized if the proper care is taken. Heficed is
among the specialist companies that offers this oversight and care, and
thus provides security to clients who might not even have known that
their assets were in danger,â Grinius adds.
Heficed believes that companies must take charge of their own
IPv4-security, since institutional help is unlikely to arrive.
Officially, the protocol is being phased-out in favour of IPv6, a
process that has only very slowly advanced since IPv6âs introduction in
1998. This long-term solution is still far off: according to Googleâs
own statistics, less than 30% of users have access to their services
using IPv6.
âFor the time being,â Grinius concludes, âthe only way to avoid potentially ruinous security breaches is to work with trustworthy partners in procuring and managing IPv4 addresses. With high demand encouraging fraud, the existing authorities are simply overstrained.â
This HEFICED news release was sourced from: https://www.heficed.com/press-releases/fraudsters-obtained-30-million-worth-of-ip-addresses-in-south-africa-experts-comments