 |
Concerns over enterprise uses of P2P
End-users already know how powerful a peer-to-peer (P2P) network can be when data needs to be shared, especially across large groups.
To better understand how people can make proper use of P2P networks, consider User A who creates something interesting, let’s say it’s a nicely laid out document on “how to install an air conditioning unit in a window”. That information is likely to be useful to a whole lot of other people so User A makes it available (for free) to anyone who wants it through a P2P community, using software such LimeWire, BitTorrent, Morpheus or eMule.
The more people share this document, the more easily available it become through the P2P community, thus spreading the load (cost of bandwidth or CPU time, mainly) across more and more end-users. It’s a very smart way to distribute data which can encompass anything digital, including music, videos and code.
So this kind of network is likely to appeal to enterprise users but since the data used at the office is likely to be more sensitive than the stuff from home, IT Security admins need to assess the P2P threat before the problems occur.
Instead of banning P2P networks altogether, companies should educate their users and show them how to use these networks without putting the company and its data at risk of being leaked to outsiders.
Why is P2P so important for companies?
Well, because of its architecture, P2P networking is a good way to run apps across shared computing resources and share public data. P2P is often employed in research, education and bioinformatics. In business environments, it has potential for file sharing and collaboration while providing major efficiencies in storage and CPU power.
Assuming the IT Security people have put the appropriate policies and controls in place, P2P is a faster, cheaper way of sharing media files and by all means, that’s a growing requirement in many companies who may even find it useful to develop custom P2P apps to cover their specific data distribution needs.
While file systems may be exposed by inattentive users, properly configured company firewalls should be able to stop illegal data movements. The greater risk comes from laptops sharing data over P2P networks outside the company firewall so that’s where the education part becomes so vital to the overall security of a company’s data.
As long as companies monitor P2P usage (within their firewall’s realm) and the networks (from the “outside world”), there should be less risk of embarrassing data leaks, copyright or privacy violations.
Tags: p2p, peer-to-peer, networks, enterprise, data, leaks, privacy, companies, it
 |
