What is BGP hijacking, which Telegram CEO talked about?

4 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Jun 17, 2026 09:52 PM IST

On Tuesday, the IT Ministry issued an order to block Telegram in India until June 22, at the behest of the National Testing Agency. (File)

A day after Telegram was temporarily banned by the Union government, the messaging platform’s founder and CEO Pavel Durov claimed that access to the app was being compromised through a “rogue method” called BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) hijacking.

He said this was affecting users outside India, where the country’s blocking orders do not apply, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Durov claimed that this was done deliberately as part of a “competitive war”.

BGP hacking is a technique in which internet traffic is misdirected by falsely advertising the route to a website or online service. Here’s more about it:

What is BGP?

The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is the internet’s routing system. It tells networks across the world how to reach specific IP addresses. If a network falsely announces that it is the preferred route to a destination, traffic can be diverted, intercepted or blackholed. This is known as BGP hijacking.

Every major telecom operator, cloud provider, content delivery network and internet service provider runs an Autonomous System (AS), a large network identified by a unique number. BGP is the protocol these networks use to tell each how traffic through these networks should reach a specific IP address.

For instance, the way it would ideally work in Durov’s example is that when a user in the UAE opens Telegram, multiple networks exchange BGP announcements to determine the best route to Telegram’s servers. The internet functions because networks generally trust these announcements.

For a rough analogy, imagine the internet as a major highway, and BGP announcements as connecting streets, where each street corresponds to a particular service. If one connecting street falsely advertises its location as someone else’s, then some of the traffic on the highway could believe the false flag and join that particular street instead.

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Durov alleged that AS18101 announced Telegram’s IP address space to the global routing table, causing users outside India, including in the UAE, to face access problems. So, if other network carriers like internet service providers and telecom operators accept the BGP announcement made by this network, it would take traffic away from Telegram, thereby impacting the service for several users.

Why was Telegram banned?

On Tuesday, the IT Ministry issued an order to block Telegram in India until June 22, at the behest of the National Testing Agency (NTA, which is responsible for conducting the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET).

The block was recommended over Telegram’s alleged role in allowing people to share leaked questions from the May 3 exam, which led to its cancellation, and subsequent claims being made by accounts on the service of having access to leaked versions of the re-examination paper, which is scheduled for June 21.

In a statement, the NTA said that over the last few weeks, Telegram channels operating openly on the platform demanded sums ranging from a few thousand to several lakhs of rupees from candidates and their families, in exchange for purported access to the re-examination paper.

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As per the NTA, some of these channels were openly advertising their purpose through their names: “PAPER LEAKED NEET”, “Re-NEET 2026”, “Private Mafia”, and “REE NEET MAFIAA”. It clarified that no such papers were available “outside the secured examination chain,” it added.

The government has also directed the app to disable its message-editing feature until June 30. According to the NTA, the message-editing feature on Telegram, in its present form, permits a channel administrator to edit the content of a previously posted message – including the substitution of attached files such as PDFs – while the original send-time stamp is retained.

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Soumyarendra Barik is a Special Correspondent with The Indian Express, specializing in the complex and evolving intersection of technology, policy, and society. With over five years of newsroom experience, he is a key voice in documenting how digital transformations impact the daily lives of Indian citizens.

Expertise & Focus Areas Barik’s reporting delves into the regulatory and human aspects of the tech world. His core areas of focus include:

The Gig Economy: He extensively covers the rights and working conditions of gig workers in India.

Tech Policy & Regulation: Analysis of policy interventions that impact Big Tech companies and the broader digital ecosystem.

Digital Rights: Reporting on data privacy, internet freedom, and India's prevalent digital divide.

Authoritativeness & On-Ground Reporting: Barik is known for his immersive and data-driven approach to journalism. A notable example of his commitment to authentic storytelling involves him tailing a food delivery worker for over 12 hours. This investigative piece quantified the meager earnings and physical toll involved in the profession, providing a verified, ground-level perspective often missing in tech reporting.

Personal Interests Outside of the newsroom, Soumyarendra is a self-confessed nerd about horology (watches), follows Formula 1 racing closely, and is an avid football fan.

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