In 2020, we saw the world change in ways that no one could have anticipated. Because of this, like so many other organizations, the Internet Society had to assess its current and future plans and evaluate the resources available. As a result, some changes have been made to our activities for the upcoming year. Moving into 2021, we will no longer focus on Time Security as a standalone project. We still deeply believe that securing the Internet’s time synchronization infrastructure is a critical component for building an open and trustworthy Internet and will continue to promote and defend this concept through our other projects, initiatives and activities.
Accurate time is essential for the security and trustworthiness of the Internet. Many systems that we regularly interact with rely on accurate time to function properly. Financial transactions, transportation, electricity and industrial production processes are just a few of these things. Accurate time also provides an essential foundation for online security, and many security mechanisms, such as Transport Layer Security (TLS) and digital signature creation and verification, depend on accurate timekeeping.
Contributing to a More Secure and Trustworthy Internet through Open Standards
Network Time Protocol (NTP) is one of the oldest Internet protocols in use. It enables the synchronization of clocks on computer networks to within a few milliseconds of standard universal coordinated time (UTC). It is a crucial component of Internet security. The NTP’s original security mechanisms were designed back in an era when most Internet traffic was trusted and the risk of attack was unlikely. Due to the continued exponential expansion of the Internet, these mechanisms became outdated and needed to be redesigned.
Work was underway in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for many years to develop replacement technology – Network Time Security (NTS) – to help secure the Internet’s time synchronization infrastructure well into the future. On 1 October, 2020, RFC 8915: Network Time Security for the Network Time Protocol was published by the IETF. This key milestone now means that NTP can now confirm the identity of the network clocks that are exchanging time information and protect the transmission of that time information across the network.
