Does My Business Need Accurate Time Synchronisation Five question (part 1)
Time synchronisation can be crucial for many computer networks. Correct synchronisation can protect a system from all sorts of security threats it will also ensure that the network is accurate and reliable but are dedicated NTP time server systems really necessary or can a network be run securely without a network time server?
Here are five questions to ask yourself to see if your network needs to be adequately synchronised.
1. Does your network conduct time sensitive transactions across the internet?
If yes then accurate network time synchronisation is essential. Time is the only point of reference a computer has to identify two events so when it comes to a transaction across the internet such as sending an email, if it comes from an unsynchronised network, it may arrive before it was technically sent. This may lead to the email not being received as a computer cannot handle negative values when it comes to time.
2. Do you store valuable data?
Data loss is another ramification of not having a synchronised network. When a computer stores data it is stamped with the time. If that time is from an unsynchronised machine on a network then a computer may consider the data already saved or it may overwrite new data with older versions.
3. Is security important to your business and network?
Keeping a network secure is essential if you have any sensitive data on the machines. Malicious users have a myriad of ways of gaining access to computer networks and using the chaos caused by an unsynchronised network is one method they frequently take advantage of. Not having a synchronised network may mean it is impossible to identify if your network has been hacked into too as all records left on log files are time reliant too.
