A.8.17 Clock Synchronisation
Control Objective
The clocks of information processing systems used by the organisation shall be synchronised to approved time sources.
Policy Statement
anDREa enforces centralized time synchronization across all network elements, cloud architectures, and user endpoints. Accurate timestamps ensure the reliability of automated systems, provide structural integrity for cryptographic tokens, and maintain an indisputable, audit-ready chronological record across disparate global environments.
Time Management & Standardized Formats
To ensure coherence across distributed teams and third-party vendors, time configurations are locked to uniform baselines:
- Reference Time Providers: Local endpoints and virtual environments synchronize their internal clocks automatically using network-delivered time feeds (such as the default Microsoft time infrastructure,
time.windows.com, or native ChromeOS NTP servers). - Unified Timestamp Standard: For all platform logs, system metrics, source code commits, and engineering telemetry, time data must be recorded using the strict ISO 8601 configuration:
ISO 8601: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS (UTC)
Localization Constraints: To avoid tracking confusion during multi-party investigations, local or user-dependent time zone adjustments are strictly blocked across all production systems, cloud interfaces, and non-office environments. Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) serves as the singular source of truth.