Full Disclosure mailing list archives

Re: Fwd: Re: FullDisclosure: Security aspects of time synchronization infrastructure


From: gadgeteer () elegantinnovations org
Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2004 09:25:09 -0600

On Fri, Aug 20, 2004 at 10:26:08AM +0400, 3APA3A (3APA3A () SECURITY NNOV RU) wrote:
[...]
you state:

    If there is a host with reliable time on the network (that is host
    synchronized with some hardware source, like radio clocks, cesium
    clocks, GPS clocks, etc) - whole network will be finally, after some
    time, synchronized with this host.

Depending upon the criticality of the time sensitive applications on
the network, you might want to reconsider the use of "radio clocks"
and especially "GPS clocks".  These time sources are also subject to
attacks.  Any free air broadcast is subject to jamming.  This is
essentially a DoS.  Spoofing to provide incorrect time signal is also
possible with free air broadcast, but less easy to do.
[...]

For a fixed installation detecting if someone is dinking the gps signal
is trivial.  The unit starts thinking it is not in Kansas anymore.
-- 
Chief Gadgeteer
Elegant Innovations

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