We asked digital security experts about the impact of Nigerian ISP, MainOne, rerouting Google traffic through China, here's what they have to say

With about 3 months to the 2019 general elections in Africas largest economy and a record number in the candidates jostling to replace Nigerian leader, Muhammadu Buhari, we asked experts about the implications of the glitch that t

On Monday, November 12, 2018, global attention turned to a leak detected by Internet research firm ThousandEyes over a "Potential hijack” traced to African ISP, MainOne.

ThousandEyes detected that "traffic to certain Google destinations appears to be routed through an ISP in Russia and black-holed at a China Telecom gateway router."

Main One Cable Company owned up to the responsibility, saying it accidentally caused the problem during a network upgrade.

ThousandEyes experts give more insights into the impact of the leak on Nigerian users

Responding to email enquiries from Business Insider SSA, Ameet Naik, ThousandEyes technical marketing manager, and author of the report said the rerouting would not have impacted customers of MainOne within Nigeria.

“Google has a direct presence at IXP Nigeria which is an Internet Exchange Point where major global networks interconnect. MainOne has a direct relationship with Google, so traffic from MainOne users within Nigeria would flow directly to Google.”

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Naik said the only impact the rerouting could have caused Nigeria is to overwhelm the network and crippled Internet service in the country for a brief period.

The glitch “had the potential to send a significant portion of Google traffic from around the world to MainOne in Nigeria, which could have overwhelmed the network and crippled Internet service in the country for a brief period.

“Luckily, all of this traffic was stopped by the Great Firewall of China and did not make it to Nigeria.”

No cause for alarm in Nigeria

Just as the much-talked likely hacking of U.S election by Russia is still a matter of public discourse, the intelligent team at ThousandEyes say no cause for alarm as Nigeria prepares for the general election.

“Theoretically there shouldn't have been any real effect on ISP users of MainOne inside Nigeria since for them the way to get all the services hadn't really changed,” Alex Henthorn-Iwane, an executive at ThousandEyes told Business Insider SSA.

Funke Opeke, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), during a media facility tour to the MainOne's Tier III Data center in Lagos ece-auto-gen

Despite the trouble-free scenario, ThousandEyes, however, encouraged all organisations connecting to the Internet to continuously monitor their reachability from around the globe and detect such incidents quickly. “Other ISPs had as much responsibility here as MainOne.”

The internet research firm said an error like can quickly spread throughout the Internet as there are no foolproof ways to prevent the occurrence.

Digital rights expert calls for clarity and more explanation

Adegoke Adeboye, Digital Rights Program Manager at Paradigm Initiative, said MainOne needs to further clarify the matter and implement new processes to attend quickly to global issues like this.

Adeboye also called on the Nigerian regulatory body and other institutions across West Africa to investigate and demand more answers from MainOne.

Adegoke Adeboye, Digital Rights Program Manager at Paradigm Initiative ece-auto-gen

“Again, this has brought to the fore again the issue of lack of Data protection laws in Nigeria and many other countries on the continent.

“The absence of regulatory frameworks makes it hard to hold service provider accountable and makes transparency requirement vague. This is another learning opportunity and a wake-up call. Clearly, a data protection law is required like yesterday,” he told BISSA in a chat on Wednesday.

Google says users' data is safe

Tech giant, Google believes the incident was not malicious. The company told Reuters that “users' data was not compromised, adding that the company has no reason to believe that the incident was malicious."

We asked digital security experts about the impact of Nigerian ISP, MainOne, rerouting Google traffic through China, here's what they have to say

With about 3 months to the 2019 general elections in Africas largest economy and a record number in the candidates jostling to replace Nigerian leader, Muhammadu Buhari, we asked experts about the implications of the glitch that t

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