Syria Experiences Extended BGP Control Plane Disruption

Syria sustained a significant, prolonged disruption to its internet routing infrastructure, beginning on July 26 and persisting for nearly 13 days. The event primarily impacted the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) control plane, a critical system for global network visibility. The disruption was recorded as ongoing until the observation window closed at 00:30 UTC on August 8.

Technical Details

The BGP signal, which measures the control plane visibility of a country’s network prefixes, recorded a severity score of 32,969. The disruption lasted approximately 12.7 days, from 08:10 UTC on July 26. During this period, the number of visible BGP prefixes remained static at 4,804, indicating a lack of normal routing updates and withdrawals.

Other network health signals showed varying degrees of impact. The ping-slash24 signal, which measures ICMP reachability across IPv4 network blocks, saw an 8% drop from its peak. The merit-nt backscatter measurement, an aggregate connectivity proxy, recorded a 43% decline. The gtr-norm signal, indicating deviation from expected traffic volume, fell 68% from its observed peak.

The cause has not been publicly attributed.

The disruption remained ongoing at the last observation.