Sharon Goldberg Finds Flaw in Computers’ Timekeeping
Working with students Aanchal Malhotra (GRS’19), Isaac Cohen (CAS’16), and Erik Brakke (CAS’16) last spring, Goldberg discovered a potential vulnerability in the Network Time Protocol (NTP), the software and rules that synchronize clocks on computers. The team developed attacks that could alter the time on computer systems, compromising other applications, such as the encryption schemes that protect internet communications to bank websites. Other apps, from bitcoin systems to website authentication and login protocols, also could be breached.
“If NTP breaks, many other computing applications break as well,” says Goldberg.
Read more at BU Today, Ars Technica, and ZDNet.