It's worse than that. BGP provides the "map" of the Internet. That map is relayed from network to network. So, as a result, Verizon announcing a bad route can mess up the map not just for them but for any other network that connects to them (directly or indirectly).
We're actually fortunate at Cloudflare because of our scale and wide-spread interconnection. That limited the impact more than it would have for a smaller, less-connected network. The crazy thing about BGP is that any router can announce that it's responsible for a block of IP addresses and, if it's trusted enough, that's what the map of the Internet will reflect.
The long term solution is for networks to implement and enforce RPKI. AT&T, for instance, implemented RPKI and we did not see any drop in traffic to their network today.
Verizon not only didn't implement RPKI, which would be the best-of-breed approach, but also didn't do even basic route filtering. It's as if a trusted traffic cop (Verizon) overheard from a random passing motorist that the main road was closed and, as a result, directed all traffic off a pier and into the ocean.
More about RPKI if you're interested: https://blog.cloudflare.com/rpki/
We're actually fortunate at Cloudflare because of our scale and wide-spread interconnection. That limited the impact more than it would have for a smaller, less-connected network. The crazy thing about BGP is that any router can announce that it's responsible for a block of IP addresses and, if it's trusted enough, that's what the map of the Internet will reflect.
The long term solution is for networks to implement and enforce RPKI. AT&T, for instance, implemented RPKI and we did not see any drop in traffic to their network today.
Verizon not only didn't implement RPKI, which would be the best-of-breed approach, but also didn't do even basic route filtering. It's as if a trusted traffic cop (Verizon) overheard from a random passing motorist that the main road was closed and, as a result, directed all traffic off a pier and into the ocean.
More about RPKI if you're interested: https://blog.cloudflare.com/rpki/