Time SIG

The Time Security SIG exists to help the global FIRST community prepare for the 2036–2038 epoch rollovers. By coordinating research, testing, and outreach on time integrity, the SIG connects CSIRTs, vendors, and standards bodies to strengthen resilience across critical infrastructure. Our goal: ensure the world’s clocks keep running — securely — long past 2038.

Mission

The Time Security SIG will raise awareness of the 2036–2038 epoch rollovers (the ‘Epochalypse’) and promote resilience in time synchronization across critical systems.

Its mission is to:

The Time Security SIG will coordinate with the Epochalypse Project (https://epochalypse-project.org) to ensure public outreach and technical guidance remain aligned and grounded in operational reality.

Unlike Y2K—which had global mobilization and years of preparation—the 2036–2038 rollovers lack coordinated response, yet affect systems from IT to IoT, from infrastructure to defense, at planetary scale.

Time integrity is foundational to security. This SIG exists because that foundation is about to be tested.

Goals & Deliverables

Goals

The Time Security SIG aims to:

  1. Enable FIRST teams to assess 2036–2038 rollover risks in their infrastructure
  2. Create a knowledge base for sharing sector-specific vulnerabilities and mitigation strategies
  3. Establish coordination channels among CSIRTs, vendors, and standards bodies
  4. Reduce time-to-remediation through shared intelligence and validated mitigation patterns

Scope

The SIG will focus on three critical epoch rollovers:

Priority Sectors: Aviation; maritime; energy; healthcare; telecommunications; financial services; defense; and industrial control systems.

Year One Deliverables

Plans are just a fiction we tell ourselves while life comes at us. The SIG aims to deliver, modulo actual volunteer capacity:

Q1-Q2 2026:

Q3-Q4 2026:

Ongoing:

Success Metric (Year One)

Longer-Term Vision (Years 2–3 Focus)

The clock is counting down. This SIG provides the coordination infrastructure FIRST teams need to be ready before 2036.

And in 2038? We'll measure our success by how ready the community feels — and by the quality of the party we throw at that year's FIRST Annual Conference!

Meetings

Chairs

Membership

Any FIRST member may join, others are welcome as well, requests must be approved by the SIG chairs.

Request to Join