A newly discovered hack could force computers to go back in time, creating the potential for attackers to decrypt communications, disrupt Bitcoin transactions and force network outages.
The majority of computer clocks across the world synchronize based on a system called Network Time Protocol. The protocol, referred to as NTP, can be manipulated to shift clocks by as many as 10 years, according to research led by Sharon Goldberg, an associate professor of computer science at Boston University, and made public last week.
“If the computer was turned off for a long time and it thinks it was yesterday, and it’s been powered off for some time, it might not know that a week has gone by, Goldberg says. Computers calibrate with NTP, the sundial of the Internet. Goldberg’s team of students found they could hijack clocks while computers were on, and also shift them when they turned back on after a reboot.
Attackers who scramble the clock could affect financial and Bitcoin transactions, which rely on timestamps, transit or more — all without Hermione’s time turner. (That’s the time-traveling necklace featured in “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”.) “Anyone with a computer can do it,” Goldberg says. Reverting computers back to the past could also allow hackers to exploit potential holes in older security protocols.
“Time is implicit in a lot of security guarantees we have on the Internet,” Goldberg says. “If we can’t trust the time, it undermines a lot of the security mechanisms we have that protect all sorts of communications.”
“People care about time because there’s money involved,” says Harlan Stenn, who has managed the Network Time Protocol since a few years after it was created in the 1980s. “What time do the markets open and close? Did this transaction happen when it said it did?
Stenn says while there are plenty of horror scenarios — hackers could break into nuclear missile launch systems, in theory, or the control systems of the power grid or commercial elevators — “these things are pretty much always well-monitored and configured.” He says these theories would make “potentially amusing fiction writing,” and that “patches” to the vulnerabilities have been issued, which are updated to computers through their operating systems.
The researchers disclosed the issues to NTP managers in August before releasing the paper publicly. Stenn says information technology professionals who monitor networks should also monitor their time systems to watch for disruptions in flow, which could indicate that an outsider is tampering with clocks.
The majority of computer clocks across the world synchronize based on a system called Network Time Protocol. The protocol, referred to as NTP, can be manipulated to shift clocks by as many as 10 years, according to research led by Sharon Goldberg, an associate professor of computer science at Boston University, and made public last week.
“If the computer was turned off for a long time and it thinks it was yesterday, and it’s been powered off for some time, it might not know that a week has gone by, Goldberg says. Computers calibrate with NTP, the sundial of the Internet. Goldberg’s team of students found they could hijack clocks while computers were on, and also shift them when they turned back on after a reboot.
Attackers who scramble the clock could affect financial and Bitcoin transactions, which rely on timestamps, transit or more — all without Hermione’s time turner. (That’s the time-traveling necklace featured in “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”.) “Anyone with a computer can do it,” Goldberg says. Reverting computers back to the past could also allow hackers to exploit potential holes in older security protocols.
“Time is implicit in a lot of security guarantees we have on the Internet,” Goldberg says. “If we can’t trust the time, it undermines a lot of the security mechanisms we have that protect all sorts of communications.”
“People care about time because there’s money involved,” says Harlan Stenn, who has managed the Network Time Protocol since a few years after it was created in the 1980s. “What time do the markets open and close? Did this transaction happen when it said it did?
Stenn says while there are plenty of horror scenarios — hackers could break into nuclear missile launch systems, in theory, or the control systems of the power grid or commercial elevators — “these things are pretty much always well-monitored and configured.” He says these theories would make “potentially amusing fiction writing,” and that “patches” to the vulnerabilities have been issued, which are updated to computers through their operating systems.
The researchers disclosed the issues to NTP managers in August before releasing the paper publicly. Stenn says information technology professionals who monitor networks should also monitor their time systems to watch for disruptions in flow, which could indicate that an outsider is tampering with clocks.