NTP Security - by Allan Liska Paperback

Book Synopsis

Learn the risks associated with Network Time Protocol (NTP) security and how to minimize those risks while deploying and managing the protocol. You will be able to reduce the disruption of communication between servers on the network and the risk that the entire network will be taken offline.

NTP Security: A Quick-Start Guide provides an understanding of how NTP is critical to modern networks and how it can be exploited. You will understand how an attacker can wreak havoc on an insecure network and guidance is provided to help you manage your system and make it more secure.

What You Will Learn:

• Understand the vulnerabilities, flaws, and risks associated with the Network Time protocol (NTP)
• Analyze NTP traffic and configure NTP on servers and workstations in the network in a more secure manner
• Use practical solutions to secure NTP and build a robust infrastructure, such as bringing more capability inside the network and creating a smaller attack surface
  
• Determine the alternatives to NTP, including how to synchronize network clocks in other ways

Who This Book Is For:

System administrators, network engineers, and security analysts

From the Back Cover

Learn the risks associated with Network Time Protocol (NTP) security and how to minimize those risks in daily deployment. Disruption of NTP services can interrupt communication between servers on the network and take an entire network offline.

Beyond disrupting communication, flaws in the NTP daemon itself can make servers vulnerable to external attack--attacks that often go unnoticed. NTP is being used more frequently in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. It is a User Datagram Protocol (UDP) with encryption schemes that are not often used or are poorly implemented, making it susceptible to spoofing.

Despite all of the security challenges, the fact is that NTP is critical to most modern networks. It is one of those "set it and forget it" protocols that network administrators and even security professionals don't understand in depth. However, an attacker who does understand the security flaws can wreak havoc on an insecure network.

NTP Security: A Quick-Start Guide provides a deeper understanding of the protocol itself and how to deploy a strategy using the protocol throughout a network in a secure manner. Your security team will be able to provide better guidance to the system and network teams who will then be able to better manage the day-to-day implementation.

This succinct resource offers practical guidance to an underserved topic (actually, not served at all). Coverage includes:

• An understanding of NTP and the importance of time synchronization in modern networks
Issues in NTP security, including an analysis of NTP traffic
• A review of the vulnerabilities and flaws in the protocol
Practical solutions for securing NTP and building a robust infrastructure
• Effective alternatives to NTP

About the Author

Allan Liska is a Consulting Systems Engineer with FireEye, and has more than 16 years of experience in the world of information security. He has worked both as a security practitioner and an ethical hacker, so he is familiar with both sides of the security aisle and, through his work at Symantec and iSIGHT Partners, has helped countless organizations improve their security posture using more effective intelligence. In addition to security experience, Mr. Liska also authored The Practice of Network Security, Building an Intelligence-Led Security Program, and contributed the security-focused chapters to The Apache Administrators Handbook.