Proactive Security Architectures for ISP Backbone Routing: A Zero-Trust Model for BGP And MPLS

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.