Narrative shaping via deniable routing disruption

Create selective, deniable connectivity failures that support a broader narrative:

  • “They are incompetent”

  • “Their infrastructure is unreliable”

  • “They cannot protect critical services”

The routing attack is not the headline. It is the enabler.

Phase 0 — Context creation (outside the network)

Before any BGP UPDATE is sent, prime the environment is primed by:

  • Diplomatic tension

  • Economic pressure

  • Information campaigns already running

  • Media narratives about “fragility” or “mismanagement”

This matters because routing anomalies need a story to land.

Phase 1 — Targeted service mapping

Identify high‑visibility services:

  • Government portals

  • Emergency services frontends

  • Media platforms

  • Services that:

    • Are geographically dependent

    • Use specific upstreams or IXPs

The aim is not total outage. It is maximum embarrassment per packet.

Phase 2 — Control‑plane foothold

As in earlier chains, we already control or influence:

  • An ASN with peering reach

  • One or more transit relationships

No exploitation yet. Just a position from which BGP UPDATEs will be believed.

Phase 3 — Precision prefix interference (control‑plane attack)

This is the core BGP move. Selective, time‑bounded prefix hijack or path manipulation

Characteristics:

  • Only specific prefixes

  • Only certain regions

  • Only during high‑visibility moments

Examples:

  • Election day

  • Emergency press conference

  • Peak business hours

Everything remains technically “valid”:

  • More‑specific announcements

  • AS_PATH manipulation

  • Selective route propagation

Phase 4 — Service degradation, not outage

What users experience:

  • Pages load slowly

  • Video streams stutter

  • “Service unavailable” appears intermittently

What operators see:

  • No total loss

  • No obvious hijack signature

  • Conflicting reports from different regions

The ambiguity is deliberate.

Phase 5 — Narrative amplification

Now the non‑technical part kicks in. Almost simultaneously:

  • Media reports “technical failures”

  • Social platforms amplify complaints

  • Commentators question competence

Do not say anything. Others will do it for us. Routing instability becomes proof of a story already in circulation.

Phase 6 — Withdrawal and deniability

Before attribution can solidify:

  • Withdraw routes

  • Paths return to baseline

  • Monitoring graphs flatten out

Post‑incident reality:

  • “Transient routing issue”

  • “No evidence of attack”

  • “Root cause unclear”

Perfect outcome.

Strategic effect

What remains:

  • Public doubt

  • Institutional embarrassment

  • Political pressure

No sanctions triggered. No red lines crossed. But credibility is dented. That damage lasts longer than the routing anomaly ever did.

Why this is a nation‑state chain?

  • Synchronised with information operations

  • Exploits human interpretation, not just protocols

  • Carefully scoped to avoid escalation

  • Designed for plausible deniability

Criminals want payment. States want beliefs to shift.

This attack demonstrates:

  • How tiny routing changes have outsized social impact

  • The difference between “network down” and “network unreliable”

  • Why defenders struggle to explain these incidents convincingly

Infrastructure attacks rarely stand alone. They are part of a story.