How RIPE Account Hacks Expose ISPs to Major Security Risks

[johny899]

You probably have heard of websites, and servers, being hacked, but could you imagine the Internet Service Provider (ISP) being hacked? If the ISP gets hacked, that would be much worse! That would be akin to someone stealing the master key to every house on your street! Recently, hackers have been focusing on RIPE accounts, which are used by ISPs to manage internet traffic. A hacked RIPE account will create a lot of instability on the web.

Let's get into what that means in more details.

What is a RIPE Account?​

RIPE NCC (Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre) is an organization that helps manage the internet in Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia. ISPs and data centers manage the following tasks with RIPE Accounts:

• Give control of IP addresses (the "addresses" of websites and devices on the Web).
• Purpose routes resulting from BGP (Border Gateway Protocol, which understand when a connection is up).
• Manage who sends or receives data.

If hackers gain access to a RIPE account, they can change the routing of traffic, steal IP address blocks, or impersonate another company online. Sounds terrible? That's because it is.

Ways Hackers Gain Access​

You may be asking yourself—how do hackers gain access to something this important? Most of the time it's not some high-tech tool, but rather simple tricks such as:

1. Fake emails (phishing): Hackers impersonate RIPE in harmless-looking emails asking you to “verifying“ your account.

2. Hacked/compromised computers: If an employee's computer is hacked, the hacker can obtain login sessions and other sensitive information.

3. Weak/no two-step (MFA) login: Weak and easy to hack login credentials without other ways to get into an account is usually the way hackers gain access.

Once they are in, hackers don't always cause chaos but rather go about normal activities such as rerouting data quietly, selling stolen IPs, or using it for spam/scams.

Why Is This So dangerous?​

Here's the scary part: with a real RIPE account, everything looks normal. The system sees the hacker's change as legitimate. When businesses have lost connectivity or data has gone missing, even the ISP may not even notice at first, since they are just going along with the validity of the hacker's change.

Imagine your company’s website just suddenly going offline and your ISP telling you “Everything looks fine.” That is what an at-scale RIPE-level hack can look like.

How ISPs Can Protect Themselves​

If you operate a hosting company or a network, here’s how to stay safe:

• Use strong hardware-based MFA (security keys).
• Monitor any route changes, using tools like RIPEstat.
• Assign minimal access: not every user requires admin rights.
• Configure route validation to deny fraudulent routes (malicious endpoints).

These are basic measures, but they’re an excellent start.

Final Thoughts​

Once a RIPE account gets hacked, it’s not just one company’s problem but a global internet issue as accounts supporting data movement on the internet can affect more than just the owner’s company, making a potentially large impact on thousands, if not more, users.

So, let’s treat these logins as gold. Once someone steals your RIPE keys, good luck regaining control. So, treat your keys like unique and protected credentials to support the internet itself.