How can we work together to improve the security and resilience of the global routing system?

That is the question posed by the “Routing Resilience Manifesto” site with the suggested answer launched today of the “Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (MANRS) document”, to which a number of network operators have already signed on as participants, including: Comcast, Level 3, NTT, RUNNet, ClaraNet, SURFnet, SpaceNet, KPN and CERNET.

To participate a network operator has to agree to implement several actions:

• Filtering – Prevent propagation of incorrect routing information.
• Anti-spoofing – Prevent traffic with spoofed source IP addresses.
• Coordination – Facilitate global operational communication and coordination between network operators.
• Global Validation – Facilitate validation of routing information on a global scale.

Network operators can then simply sign up to participate and after verification will be added to the list of participants.

The overall objectives of the MANRS initiative are:

1. Raise awareness and encourage actions by demonstrating commitment of the growing group of supporters
2. Promote the culture of collective responsibility for resilience and security of the Internet’s global routing system
3. Demonstrate the ability of the industry to address issues of resilience and security of the Internet’s global routing system in the spirit of collective responsibility
4. Provide a framework for ISPs to better understand and help address issues related to resilience and security of the Internet’s global routing system

As more network operators / service providers sign on to the MANRS document and do go ahead and implement the actions, we will collectively be increasing the security and resiliency of the overall Internet—which will make the Internet that much more useful for communication, collaboration and commerce.

If you operate a network - or interact with those who do—please do read through the MANRS document and sign up if you can—and help spread the word.

If everyone were to mind their Internet routing MANRS… we’d all be able to get along much better!