CVE-2026-102483
Description
A flaw was found in NTPsec. An unauthenticated remote attacker can cause a Denial of Service (DoS) by sending a specially crafted Network Time Security (NTS) request containing excessive NTS Cookie Placeholder extension fields. Handling this malformed request causes the daemon to unexpectedly terminate, preventing the service from processing legitimate time synchronization requests.
Statement
This vulnerability is rated as Important because remote, unauthenticated actors can induce an unexpected daemon crash without prior privileges or user interaction, resulting in a total denial of time synchronization services. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is unaffected by default because chrony serves as the standard NTP implementation, with NTPsec only distributed through optional community channels such as EPEL. Risk is therefore confined to deployments where NTPsec has been explicitly installed and exposed to untrusted network traffic, with no potential for code execution or unauthorized data access.
Understanding the Weakness (CWE)
Availability
Technical Impact: DoS: Crash, Exit, or Restart
While assertion is good for catching logic errors and reducing the chances of reaching more serious vulnerability conditions, an attacker can still cause a denial of service if they can trigger an assert statement, and if the scope of the assert() extends beyond the attacker's own session. For example, if a server handles multiple simultaneous connections, if an assert() occurs in one single connection that causes all other connections to be dropped, this could be a significant denial of service.
Frequently Asked Questions
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