123/udp - Pentesting NTP

🎙️ HackTricks LIVE Twitch Wednesdays 5.30pm (UTC) 🎙️ - 🎥 Youtube 🎥

Do you work in a cybersecurity company? Do you want to see your company advertised in HackTricks? or do you want to have access to the latest version of the PEASS or download HackTricks in PDF? Check the SUBSCRIPTION PLANS!
Discover The PEASS Family, our collection of exclusive NFTs
Get the official PEASS & HackTricks swag
Join the 💬 Discord group or the telegram group or follow me on Twitter 🐦@carlospolopm.
Share your hacking tricks by submitting PRs to the hacktricks repo and hacktricks-cloud repo.

Did you know that crypto projects pay more bounty rewards than their web2 counterparts?
****This crypto bounty alone is worth $1.000.000!
Check out the top-paying bounties among crypto projects.
Sign up on HackenProof to get rewarded without delays and become the web3 hacker legend.

{% embed url="https://hackenproof.com/register?referral_code=i_E6M25i_Um9gB56o-XsIA" %}

Basic Information

The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is a networking protocol for clock synchronization between computer systems over packet-switched, variable-latency data networks.

Default port: 123/udp

PORT    STATE SERVICE REASON
123/udp open  ntp     udp-response

Enumeration

ntpq -c readlist <IP_ADDRESS>
ntpq -c readvar <IP_ADDRESS>
ntpq -c peers <IP_ADDRESS>
ntpq -c associations <IP_ADDRESS>
ntpdc -c monlist <IP_ADDRESS>
ntpdc -c listpeers <IP_ADDRESS>
ntpdc -c sysinfo <IP_ADDRESS>

nmap -sU -sV --script "ntp* and (discovery or vuln) and not (dos or brute)" -p 123 <IP>

Examine configuration files

ntp.conf

NTP Amplification Attack

How NTP DDoS Attack Works

NTP protocol by design uses UDP to operate, which does not require any handshake like TCP, thus no record of the request. So, NTP DDoS amplification attack begins when an attacker crafts packets with a spoofed source IP to make the packets appear to be coming from the intended target and sends them to NTP server. Attacker initially crafts the packet of few bytes, but NTP responds with a large amount of data thus adding to amplification of this attack.

MONLIST command: It is a NTP protocol command which has very little use, but it is this command which is the main culprit for this attack. However, the use of MONLIST command is to give details of the last 600 clients that have connected to the NTP time service. Below is the command syntax:

ntpdc -n -c monlist <IP>

Shodan

ntp

HackTricks Automatic Commands

Protocol_Name: NTP    #Protocol Abbreviation if there is one.
Port_Number:  123     #Comma separated if there is more than one.
Protocol_Description: Network Time Protocol         #Protocol Abbreviation Spelled out

Entry_1:
  Name: Notes
  Description: Notes for NTP
  Note: |
    The Network Time Protocol (NTP) is a networking protocol for clock synchronization between computer systems over packet-switched, variable-latency data networks.

    https://book.hacktricks.xyz/pentesting/pentesting-ntp

Entry_2:
  Name: Nmap
  Description: Enumerate NTP
  Command: nmap -sU -sV --script "ntp* and (discovery or vuln) and not (dos or brute)" -p 123 {IP}

Did you know that crypto projects pay more bounty rewards than their web2 counterparts?
This crypto bounty alone is worth $1.000.000!
Check out the top-paying bounties among crypto projects.
Sign up on HackenProof to get rewarded without delays and become the web3 hacker legend.