Arista Networks, Cisco, Huawei, Juniper Networks, and Nokia are the founding members of the Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (MANRS) initiative, supported by the Internet Society. MANRS has now launched an equipment vendor program. The new program is aimed at tackling the systemic vulnerabilities of global routing security through “groundbreaking” collaborative action.
Internet security is depending on the security of routing. Systemic issues that arise from how traffic is routed would make the Internet vulnerable to abuse, attacks, and errors. The MANRS initiative is aimed at helping networks take critical steps to reduce road hijack, route leakage and spoofing by means of technological and collaborative actions.
These network equipment vendors provide their products and services to clients such as fixed or mobile operators, IXPs, corporate clients, and communication service providers. Improving and configuring security checks for devices such as routers and switches would enable these company’s clients world-wide to safely route Internet data by default.
- Equipment suppliers agree that network operators can offer safety features to meet MANRS guidelines such as the prevention of erroneous routing information and spoofing of IP addresses
- Participants agree to promote MANRS through training and technical content
- They also undertake action to participate actively in the MANRS community in order to advise members, create solutions and contribute to routing security resources
MANRS Programs
“Having five of the leading network equipment vendors in the world working together with the MANRS community to launch the new Equipment Vendor Program demonstrates the importance of routing security in making the Internet safe for business and consumers alike,” said Andrei Robachevsky, Senior Director, Technology Programs for the Internet Society. “These founding participants are leading by example to improve routing security and hopefully will motivate the entire Internet infrastructure community to make the Internet more secure for everyone.”
Collaboration and shared responsibility are key to the success of MANRS. The new Equipment Vendor Program is the latest in a series of programs established by MANRS including, the MANRS IXP Program in 2018 and the CDN & Cloud Program in 2020.
To date, over 600 network operators, IXPs, and content delivery network (CDN) and cloud providers have signed on. By joining, these companies are showing their commitment to securing the fabric of the Internet.
Arista Networks, Juniper Networks
“For Arista, security is a key attribute of our overall solution, starting at the routing perimeter for worldwide Internet resiliency. As a global industry leader in cloud networking, we want to take part in the efforts to secure the Internet as well,” said Ashwin Kohli, Senior Vice President, Customer Engineering for Arista Networks. “MANRS is providing great guidelines to achieve that goal and Arista Networks is proud to be a founding participant of the MANRS vendor program.”
“With a greater reliance on the Internet now more than ever, it’s crucial that the Internet is stable and offers secure and trusted methods to connect users,” said Melchior Aelmans, Consulting Engineer, Juniper Networks. “It is the responsibility of the global community to work together to ensure that the ecosystem forming the Internet works well and is protected against threat actors. Juniper Networks is a proud supporter of the MANRS program and will continue to strive for a better Internet in today’s connected world.”
About the Internet Society
The Internet Society (ISOC) is a non-profit organization founded by Internet pioneers, which ensures open Internet creation, development and use. The Internet society works with a worldwide chapter and members community to promote technology that provide secure Internet access and support legislation enabling universal access, in conjunction with a broad variety of organizations. The Internet Society is also the organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
