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Implementing network time security (NTP NTS) at the hardware level (2022)


Network Time Security (NTS) adds a vital layer of security to Network Time Protocol (NTP) services. Having carried out their software implementation of NTS back in 2019, Netnod has now implemented NTS at the hardware level.

The seldom used key establishment on top of standard Transport Layer Security (TLS), and; The (already existing) low latency UDP-based time synchronisation path. This improves both the quality of the time synchronisation provided and the security of the service by reducing the ability for side-channel attacks on the keys. As opposed to having multiple servers with a load balancer, the hardware implementation allows for everything to be done internally using a smaller amount of equipment and consuming less power.

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NTP NTS