What Is BGP Hijacking? Telegram Founder Accuses Reliance Of Blocking Access To The App

Telegram founder Pavel Durov on Wednesday has accused telecom giant Reliance Jio of disrupting access to Telegram for users outside India through what he described as a rogue case of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) hijacking.

In a X post, Durov wrote,''Indian telecom Reliance is sabotaging access to Telegram for millions of users OUTSIDE India (including the UAE) via a rogue method called BGP hijacking. The sabotage seems intentional, as Reliance has ignored multiple reports. This may be part of a competitive war, as Reliance is partially owned by Meta - the company behind WhatsApp.''

He further alleged that Network operators are advised to reject unauthorised BGP announcements from Reliance (AS18101) to prevent route hijacks and ensure stable Internet access for their users. However, Durov did not provide public evidence to support those allegations.

''Such abuse of global Internet routing is alarming. I wouldn't be surprised if Reliance/WhatsApp were also behind the recent lobbying effort to ban Telegram in India,'' the Telegram chief wrote.

What is BGP Hijacking?

BGP or Border Gateway Protocol, the system that allows independent networks across the world to exchange routing information and direct internet traffic efficiently.

To understand how a telecom provider can disrupt an app like Telegram across international borders, you have to look at the global internet's GPS system also known as BGP (Border Gateway Protocol).

In simple terms, the internet is not a single entity. It is a massive web of independent networks that rely on an honor system to route data. When you open Telegram, your internet provider looks at BGP data to find the fastest highway to Telegram's servers.

In a BGP hijack, a rogue network operator exploits this trust. They broadcast unauthorized routing paths to the rest of the world, essentially putting up a fake signpost that claims, "Telegram's traffic belongs over here on our network."

Because global networks blindly trust these announcements, traffic from innocent users-even those thousands of miles away, such as in the UAE-gets sucked into the wrong network. Once the traffic is misdirected into the rogue telecom's servers, it can be dropped into a digital dead end (known as "blackholing") or intercepted, completely cutting off access to the app.

When a massive telecom company ignores multiple reports to fix such a routing "error," it crosses the line from a technical mistake into suspected deliberate sabotage.

How It Works: The Internet's Hijacked GPS

To understand how this disruption happens, think of the global internet as a massive highway system. When a user tries to access Telegram, their device relies on a digital navigation system called BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) to find the fastest route to Telegram's servers.

In a BGP hijack, a rogue network operator essentially broadcasts a fake map to the rest of the world, falsely claiming, "Telegram lives over here on our network." Other international internet providers, trusting this data, accidentally route their users' traffic into a dead end or a roadblock. This explains why users far outside of India, including those in the UAE, suddenly found themselves cut off from the app.