An external trusted time source is implemented over a network for conditional access system (CAS)/digital rights management (DRM) client devices. A client device includes untrusted software and a trusted execution environment (TEE) for processing an entitlement management message (EMM) that includes an epoch sequence number (ESN) transmitted from an EMM server using a first network connection. A remaining client key set (CKS) lifetime value is stored and updated in the TEE based on the ESN processed.