nanog mailing list archives

Re: TWC (AS11351) blocking all NTP?


From: Michael DeMan <nanog () deman com>
Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2014 21:45:50 -0800

The recently publicized mechanism to leverage NTP servers for amplified DoS attacks is seriously effective.
I had a friend who had a local ISP affected by this Thursday and also another case where just two asterisk servers 
saturated a 100mbps link to the point of unusability.
Once more - this exploit is seriously effective at using bandwidth by reflection.

From a provider point of view, given the choices between contacting the end-users vs. mitigating the problem, if I were 
in TW position if I was unable to immediately contact the numerous downstream customers that were affected by this, I 
would take the option to block NTP on a case-by-case basis (perhaps even taking a broad brush) rather than allow it to 
continue and cause disruptions elsewhere.


- Mike

On Feb 2, 2014, at 12:44 PM, John Levine <johnl () iecc com> wrote:

In article <20140202163313.GF24634 () hijacked us> you write:
The provider has kindly acknowledged that there is an issue, and are
working on a resolution.  Heads up, it may be more than just my region.

I'm a Time-Warner cable customer in the Syracuse region, and both of
the NTP servers on my home LAN are happily syncing with outside peers.

My real servers are hosted in Ithaca, with T-W being one of the
upstreams and they're also OK.  They were recruited into an NTP DDoS
last month (while I was at a meeting working on anti-DDoS best
practice, which was a little embarassing) but they're upgraded and
locked down now.

R's,
John






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