Dec 13, 2019 08:00:00

Report that IPv4 address equivalent to about 5 billion yen is diverted from Africa

By

garloon

Almost 4 billion IPv4 addresses have already been allocated as of 2019, and it is not enough globally to be used up in North America and Europe . According to a study by Ron Gilmet, a freelance researcher based in California, an IP address block reserved for an African-based company was acquired by a non-existent company or another company It became clear that it was in the hands of companies based in other continents through companies.

The Great $ 50M African IP Address Heist — Krebs on Security
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/12/the-great-50m-african-ip-address-heist/

At the time of writing, IPv4 addresses are traded between $ 15 (about 1600 yen) and $ 25 (about 2700 yen) in the open market, and the market value of IP addresses diverted from Africa is $ 50 million (about Mr. Gilmet estimates that it will exceed ¥ 5.4 billion.

Gilmet worked with a journalist based in South Africa to discover an IP address that was believed to have been sold by AFRINIC . It was also revealed that the IP address associated with a private company named “ipv4leasing” registered with AFRINIC may have been misused by spammers and fraudsters. ipv4leasing was registered in 2013 by Ernest Byarhanga, an AFRINIC employee, and had two associated domains, ipv4leasing.org and ipv4leasing.net. ipv4leasing.org is linked to at least six large IP address blocks, and these IP addresses were used in Cameroon. Many similar cases have been discovered besides ipv4leasing.

By stevanovicigor

Mr. Gilmet asked Mr. Byarhanga for comment, but Mr. Byarhanga did not respond. However, in October 2019 after Mr. Jan Vermeulen, a reporter at Mybroadband , a South African tech news site that supported Mr. Gilmet , reported that IP addresses in Africa were misappropriated, Mr. Byarhanga suddenly resigned from AFRINIC. . 'We are investigating this issue,' said AFRINIC CEO Eddie Kaifira.

Bill Woodcock, director of PCH , a non-profit research institution that understands and supports Internet traffic technology, said, “Employees managing local Internet registries arrested for selling IP addresses without permission. There have been many cases, but the case in Africa has been the longest-running crime ever filed, often with a single offense until arrest or dismissal And most of the cases are short-term. '