The Federal Trade Commission raised the P2P File Sharing Alarm this week by sending letters out to 100 organizations informing them that personal information on customers and employees was being shared via P2P networks. The FTC news was widely reported this week including a comprehensive article in InfoWorld.
The FTC Peer-to-Peer File Sharing guidelines for businesses includes this advice “Any company that collects and stores sensitive information must consider the security implications of using P2P file sharing software and minimize the risks associated with it.”
This isn’t news to Accellion – we have been raising awareness of hazards of P2P file sharing for quite some time. Many business users don’t realize that the same P2P software they use to freely exchange personal files may also be configured to access and share virtually all of the files that reside on their computer hard drive or network servers. In a business environment this leaves organizations exposed to potential data breaches.
Here are a couple of recent Accellion articles on this topic:
• Is P2P changing How You Prepare for a Security Audit? published in the SOX Compliance Journal
• Secure File Transfer – P2P Alternatives – published in Enterprise Systems.
Concerns regarding data breaches from P2P file sharing have been brewing for a while. Some of the more interesting P2P embarrassments from last year included, Rampant P2P Medical Data Leakage and Obama’s Helicopter Plans leaked over P2P.
In a nutshell, P2P file sharing creates security vulnerabilities for organizations and Accellion’s advice is that implementation of a secure file transfer solution will safeguard organizations and their users from the hazards of P2P files sharing.
If you are one of the organizations who received a letter this week from the FTC, or are worried you might be next on the list,please give us a call – we’re here to help.
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