[ncc-announce] [news] RIPE-NCC-RPSL-MNT removed from "mnt-by:" on objects

Dear Colleagues,

As you may know, the RIPE-NCC-RPSL-MNT is used to authorise the creation of out-of-region AUT-NUM and ROUTE(6) objects. This maintainer has a well-known password so that anyone can create such objects in the RIPE Database. For the time being this maintainer is still used to authorise the creation of out-of-region objects, but the community has recognised that this model should be improved, and discussion on this topic is on the agenda of the coming RIPE Meeting.

However, the RIPE NCC was instructed by the RIPE Database Working Group to limit the use of this maintainer on "mnt-by:" as a first step of improvement. The RIPE Database documentation as well as the "descr:" of this maintainer have always instructed that this maintainer should not be used on "mnt-by:", because it leaves objects vulnerable to hijacking by any database user. Therefore, as part of release 1.86 of the RIPE Database that was deployed to production on 21 March 2016, the RIPE NCC introduced a business rule that prevents the use of this maintainer on "mnt-by:" of new objects.

As agreed with the RIPE Database Working Group, the RIPE NCC also removed RIPE-NCC-RPSL-MNT from "mnt-by:" on 13,630 existing objects on 25 April 2016. Holders of these objects were sent individual emails about the pending removal of this maintainer on 12 April 2016, and notifications about the update were sent. Of the objects affected, 2,571 objects did not have any other maintainer, and as a result these objects are now locked. The legitimate holder of the resources of these objects can contact ripe-dbm at ripe.net in case the objects need to be unlocked.

Now that these changes are complete, there are no remaining objects in the RIPE Database that are vulnerable to hijacking because of the use of this maintainer, and no new cases can be introduced.

We did not send an earlier general warning about this change to ncc-announce because in our judgement this would have given too much exposure to how these objects could be hijacked by any user.

Kind regards

Tim Bruijnzeels

Assistant Manager Software Engineering
RIPE NCC Database Group