Peer-to-Peer Network Security

By John Wagley

SecurityManagement.com/ News -  The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is sending a growing flurry of takedown notices to peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and online auction sites in an effort to fight piracy, according to a new BSA report. 

BSA, consisting of a host of software developers, says 41 percent of the software used on personal computers worldwide is illegitimate, resulting in about $53 billion in industry losses.

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By:  Ellen Messmer  

For: ComputerWorld

New legislation is pressuring U.S. colleges and universities to do a better job combating illegal file-sharing – and it’s taking a toll on campus IT departments

 New legislation is putting pressure on U.S. colleges and universities to do a better job combating illegal file-sharing — and it’s taking a toll on campus IT departments, according to research published this week.

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By David S. Perkins
September 21, 2009

Data breaches have hit an all time high and with that have been a dramatic increase in new data security and privacy laws and regulations. Both state and federal regulations have been in place for several years with regards to security and privacy of Personal Identifiable Information (PII) and Protected Health Information (PHI). However, new regulations have popped up at a rapid pace. Just a few years ago there were only a handful of states that had data breach notification laws. Today, 44 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands have enacted data breach privacy laws and federal legislation is well on its way.

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Rian from RedTeam Protection, a division of Tony Josephs and Sons Investigations Inc., just sent me another batch of p2p cockups that exposed personal – and in some cases – sensitive medical – information. In each case, RedTeam advised the entity and/or helped ensure removal of the filesharing application.

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Written by Jaikumar Vijayan , Computerworld , 07/31/2009

 Poorly crafted law could would also block some cost-saving file-sharing tech, some say

A proposal to introduce a bill seeking to formally ban the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing applications on government and contractor networks is evoking a mixed response.

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By Brian Krebs and Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post Staff Writers

 The indiscriminate use of a popular online data-sharing technology has led to the disclosure of sensitive government and personal information — including FBI surveillance photos of a Mafia hit man, lists of people with HIV, and motorcade routes and safe-house locations for then-first lady Laura Bush, a congressional panel was told on Wednesday.

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Written By: Jaikumar Vijayan

Lawmakers eye bill to ban P2P use on government, contractor networks

July 29, 2009 (Computerworld) – Details about a U.S. Secret Service safe house for the First Family — to be used in a national emergency — were found to have leaked out on a LimeWire file-sharing network recently, members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee were told this morning.

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News Release - July 8, 2009

 Sydnor Outlines Approaches to Remediate Inadvertent Sharing

WASHINGTON D.C. – Inadvertent file-sharing can still be caused and perpetuated by dangerous “features” in certain file-sharing programs, explains Thomas Sydnor in “Inadvertent File-Sharing Re-Invented: The Dangerous Design of LimeWire 5,” released today by The Progress & Freedom Foundation. 

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Culled from Verizon Business analysis of 90 major security breaches

By Carolyn Duffy Marsan , Network World , 07/05/2009

When you look at the worst corporate security breaches, it’s clear that network managers keep making the same mistakes over and over again, and that many of these mistakes are easy to avoid.

In 2008, Verizon Business analyzed 90 security breaches that represented 285 million compromised records. Most of these headline-grabbing incidents involved organized crime finding an unprotected opening into a network and using it to steal credit card data, Social Security numbers or other personally identifiable information.

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Jammie Thomas-Rasset was found guilty of willful copyright infringement on Thursday in a Minneapolis federal court and must pay the recording industry $1.92 million. In a surprise decision, the jury imposed damages against Thomas-Rasset, who was originally accused to sharing more than 1,700 songs, at a whopping $80,000 for each of the 24 songs she was ultimately found guilty of illegally sharing..

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