Time Security SIG

The Time Security SIG helps the global FIRST community defend the integrity of time: both the time sources our systems depend on every day, and the 2036–2038 epoch rollovers approaching on fixed dates. By coordinating research, testing, and outreach, the SIG connects CSIRTs, PSIRTs, vendors, researchers, and standards bodies to strengthen resilience across critical infrastructure. Our goal is to help the world's clocks keep running securely, long past 2038.

Unlike Y2K, which mobilised a global remediation effort, preparations for the 2036–2038 rollovers remain fragmented and under-resourced. The potential consequences span IT, OT, embedded systems, and critical infrastructure worldwide.

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

Request to Join

Founded by Trey Darley and Pedro Umbelino to bring the 2038 problem into FIRST, the effort began with a kick-off BoF at the June 2025 Annual Conference in Copenhagen and subsequently became a formally established SIG. It has since grown to more than eighty participants from a wide range of industries and countries. Lorenzo Dina joined Trey and Pedro as co-chair in October 2026.

The SIG supports coordination around ITU-T XSTP.epoch, a Technical Paper on 2038-class rollover events agreed by Study Group 17 in June 2026, and engages with IEEE P4150, a standards project developing a Recommended Practice for assessing and documenting rollover preparedness. We also exchange research and outreach material with the independently operated Epochalypse Project, helping connect public awareness with operational and technical work.

The SIG aims to maintain a continually updated picture of the risks: emerging findings, testing results, remediation progress, and the organisations working on each part of the problem. The editors of XSTP.epoch aim to incorporate this evidence into revisions roughly every six months, subject to SG17's procedures, so that the paper evolves as the evidence improves. Just as importantly, we aim to make work across the community visible, connect complementary efforts, and identify gaps before they become emergencies.

Scope

The SIG focuses on three epoch rollovers:

Alongside these dated events, the SIG also addresses present-day threats to time integrity, such as the manipulation or spoofing of the NTP and GNSS sources these same systems rely on.

Priority sectors: aviation, maritime, energy, healthcare, telecommunications, financial services, defence, and industrial control systems.

Mission

The SIG exists to help the FIRST community, and the organisations it serves, prepare for the 2036–2038 epoch rollovers (the "Epochalypse") and for present-day threats to time integrity. It serves CSIRTs, PSIRTs, vendors, researchers, and the standards and policy bodies they work with. Awareness alone isn't enough: the aim is evidence that organisations, regulators, and insurers can act on.

Goals

The Time Security SIG aims to make it possible for FIRST teams and their partners to:

  1. Assess 2036–2038 rollover risks in their own infrastructure
  2. Share sector-specific vulnerabilities and mitigation strategies through a common knowledge base
  3. Coordinate across CSIRTs, vendors, and standards bodies
  4. Remediate faster, using shared intelligence and validated mitigation patterns
  5. Promote resilient time synchronisation through authenticated time sources, sound architecture, and verifiable security controls

Looking ahead

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

Meetings

Chairs

Membership

Any FIRST member may join; others are welcome too, subject to approval by the SIG chairs.

Request to Join

And in 2038? We'll measure our success by what the community has tested, understood, and made resilient, and, naturally, by the quality of the party we throw at that year's FIRST Annual Conference!

Last updated: 2026-10-29