US 2015/0317478 A1 · Clock Rollback Security

Abstract

Methods and systems for preventing clock rollback attacks are described herein. A rollback attack may occur when a user manually sets a system clock to a date/time earlier than the actual present day date and time, thereby tricking any software relying on the system clock to believe it is in fact the earlier date and time rather than the current date and time. According to aspects described herein, a particular application may check and store a record of the system time when an application goes inactive (or at intervals) and again when the application subsequently is activated again. When the application determines that the time has gone backward, the application (or system) may take some remedial measure(s) to prevent further use of the application (or system) until the user reestablishes trust (e.g., by reauthenticating or reestablishing a connection with a trusted time server).

Claims21

Dependent claims

A method comprising:

recording, by a computing device, a first system time when an application becomes inactive;
recording, by the computing device, a second system time when the application subsequently becomes active;
determining whether the second system time is less recent than the first system time;
and
when the second system time is less recent than the first system time by more than a predefined amount of time, initiating a remedial action to restrict access to the application on the computing device.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Clock Rollback Security

Life of this patent

Clock Rollback Security

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims21