NTPsec dodges 8 of 11 CVEs because we’d pre-hardened the code

While most of the NTPsec team was off at Penguicon, the NTP Classic people shipped a release patched for eleven security vulnerabilities in their code. Which might have been pretty embarrassing, if those vulnerabilities were in our code, too. People would be right to wonder, given NTPsec’s security focus, why we didn’t catch all these sooner.

In fact, we actually did pre-empt most of them. The attack surface that eight of these eleven security bugs penetrate isn’t present at all in NTPsec. The vulnerabilities were in bloat and obsolete features we’ve long since removed, like the Mode 7 control channel.

I’m making a big deal about this because it illustrates a general point. One of the most effective ways to harden your code against attack – perhaps the most effective – is to reduce its attack surface.

Thus, NTPsec’s strategy all along has centered on aggressive cruft removal. This strategy has been working extremely well. Back in January our 0.1 release dodged two CVEs because of code we had already removed. This time it was eight foreclosed – and I’m pretty sure it won’t be the last time, either. If only because I ripped out Autokey on Sunday, a notorious nest of bugs.

Simplify, cut, discard. It’s often better hardening than anything else you can do. The percentage of NTP Classic code removed from NTPsec is up to 58% now, and could easily hit 2/3rds before we’re done,