Hello, aspiring Ethical Hackers. In our previous blogpost, you learnt what is enumeration, why it is important in pen testing and what are the various types of enumeration. In this blogpost, you will learn about NTP enumeration.
What is NTP?
NTP stands for Network Time Protocol. Network Time protocol is used to synchronize clocks of networked computers. In simple words, NTP is used to maintain same time on all the computers of the same network. NTP runs on UDP port 123.
What information does NTP enumeration reveal?
NTP enumeration can reveal valuable information such as list of hosts connected to the NTP server, their IP addresses, system names, target server’s operating system etc.
How to perform NTP enumeration?
There are many tools to perform enumerate NTP but for this article, let’s see how to perform it using Nmap scripting engine. Yes, Nmap has specific scripts to enumerate NTP. One such script is “ntp-info.nse”. The “ntp-info.nse” script reveals time and configuration variables from the NTP server. Let’s see how to use it.
As you can see, the above script gives us information not only about the target server’s operating system but also the version of the kernel running etc. Another script “ntp-monlist.nse” can be used to retrieve NTP server’s monitor data.
