CVE-2015-3405: ntp-keygen in ntp 4.2.8px before 4.2.8p2-RC2 and 4.3.x before 4.3.12 does not generate MD5 keys with suffic...

Security readout for executives and security teams

This flaw could make some NTP authentication keys far easier to guess when they were generated on affected big-endian systems. The business risk is unauthorized trust in time synchronization, but the exposure appears narrow and tied to old NTP versions and generated MD5 symmetric keys. Likely exposure is limited to environments that generated and still use NTP MD5 symmetric keys from affected ntp-keygen versions on big-endian systems. General NTP clients, non-MD5 configurations, and keys generated elsewhere are not shown as affected in the supplied sources. Treat as a targeted hygiene issue, not an emergency from the supplied evidence. Prioritize systems where authenticated NTP supports operational, logging, or security controls, especially legacy big-endian platforms and long-lived symmetric keys. Mitigation focus: Upgrade NTP packages using the relevant vendor advisory for the deployed distribution.; Use NTP versions at or beyond 4.2.8p2-RC2 or 4.3.12 where applicable.; Regenerate affected MD5 symmetric keys after upgrading ntp-keygen..

Prepared

Jun 12, 2026, 21:41 UTC (UTC+00:00)

Generated from the cited source records. This long-tail analysis has not been individually reviewed by a named human.