Proactive Security Architectures for ISP Backbone Routing: A Zero-Trust Model for BGP And MPLS
MS EE, Network Architect, USA, Darshan Prajapati · International journal of data science and machine learning. · 2025
Emerging threats in global Internet infrastructure have highlighted critical vulnerabilities in backbone routing protocols such as Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS). Traditional trust-based and perimeter-centric ISP security architectures are demonstrably insufficient against sophisticated modern attacks, including route hijacks, insider threats, and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) campaigns. This paper formulates and evaluates a proactive security architecture model for ISP backbone routing, grounded in Zero Trust principles. Integrating techniques for continuous identity validation, micro-segmentation, cryptographic route authentication, and automated real-time anomaly detection, we propose a comprehensive defense-in-depth approach targeting both BGP and MPLS domains. The novel architecture addresses authentication, authorization, context-aware access control, and secure path computation, while embedding horizontal and vertical segmentation within the ISP core. We analyze existing vulnerabilities, review state-of-the-art zero trust implementations, formalize a control plane security blueprint, and present empirical evaluation metrics for resilience, response time, and detection accuracy. Experimental and simulation-based analysis demonstrates that our architecture provides robust mitigation against prefix hijacks, route-leak attacks, and lateral exploits. Our results support Zero Trust as a foundational paradigm for next-generation ISP backbone security, significantly hardening both routing infrastructure and service continuity against a spectrum of advanced threats.