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General Questions
1. What are P2P File Sharing Networks?
2. What risk do P2P File Sharing Networks pose to me?
3. How does sensitive and personal information/data get onto P2P file sharing networks?
4. Doesn’t my anti-virus software protect me from inadvertent file sharing?
5. Doesn’t my firewall software protect me from inadvertent file sharing?
6. If I never downloaded a P2P client, am I safe?
7. If I remove P2P file sharing software from my computer, am I safe?
8. Does encryption of my files protect me from inadvertent file sharing?
9. How does Tiversa FileDetector™ Monitoring Service protect me?
10. How much does FileDetector cost?
11. What if I set-up P2P file sharing software properly?
12. If there is such a big security problem with the P2P networks why haven’t I heard about it?
13. How does Tiversa FileDetector™ Monitoring Service work? |
Common Questions
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Answers
1. What are P2P File Sharing Networks? | back to top
P2P file sharing software provides an efficient way for people to share files with each other. Starting with Napster in 1999, P2P has gained both popularity and notoriety for the file sharing of entertainment content among its users.
Essentially, P2P technology uses the muscle power of the computers that it connects to people to directly connect to one another. This is different than a website that uses a central web server to share files.
Once you have a peer-to-peer application installed, you allow anyone else in the world with a P2P application to copy files from your home PC. This can be a single file, an entire directory, or your entire hard-drive. If care is not exercised (and even when it is), your entire hard-drive, including any confidential documents, may be wide-open to anyone in the world.
2. What risks do P2P File Sharing Networks pose to me? | back to top
P2P File sharing has many legitimate uses; however, you must be aware of the potential risks of running P2P software. One of the most damaging is the risk of inadvertent file sharing of personal and confidential information.
3. How does personal information get onto P2P file sharing networks? | back to top
Sensitive and personal information gets onto P2P file sharing networks from inadvertent file sharing and from P2P malware.
Inadvertent file sharing happens when computer users mistakenly share more files than they intend. For example, they may only want to share their music files or a large academic report, but instead open all files on their computer’s hard drive to access by other users on the P2P network. This typically occurs by a user error in either installing and/or using the software.
Malicious individuals sometimes write P2P malware to “ride” existing P2P applications attempting to get users to take an action - such as opening a zip file - that will activate a piece of malware that may share files without a user’s knowledge.
The result of inadvertent file sharing and P2P malware is that hundreds of thousands of sensitive, confidential, and classified files are exposed and made available to the universe of P2P users each day.
4. Doesn’t my anti-virus software protect me from inadvertent sharing? | back to top
Virus checking software is designed to detect malicious code. Inadvertent file sharing via peer-to-peer file sharing networks is based on user behavior and the set-up procedures of P2P software itself. Virus checking software may protect you from opening up malicious code while you are using P2P software, but will not protect you from inadvertent file sharing.
5. Doesn’t my firewall software protect me from inadvertent file sharing? | back to top
Filters and firewalls do not adequately protect your information from disclosures on the P2P. Firewalls are generally configured to stop inbound access to a network protecting people trying to get into your network or PC. A P2P file sharing user is located inside a network or has access to his PC. P2P file sharing applications have built in firewall and filter defeating features and can impersonate World Wide Web traffic and slip past firewalls, filters, and port blocking technology undetected. Many P2P users knowingly set-up their P2P applications to get past firewalls to enjoy the benefits of obtaining music, movies or software.
6. If I never downloaded a P2P client, am I safe? | back to top
Malicious individuals write code that can mimic the behavior of file sharing software without the user interface. Once running on your computer introduced via opening an e-mail for instance, these programs can run in the background making your private and confidential files available to peer-to-peer file sharing networks without your knowledge.
7. If I remove P2P file sharing software from my computer, am I safe? | back to top
Some peer-to-peer file sharing programs re-install themselves in whole or in part after a user follows standard de-installation procedures. A recent study illustrates this behavior well.
8. Does encryption of my files protect me from inadvertent file sharing? | back to top
Full disk encryption and encrypting a file do not adequately protect you from inadvertent file sharing. This is due to the fact that you are authorizing your computer to share files and the P2P file sharing software is an authorized program. As such, your computer provides these files in unencrypted form to other P2P file sharing users.
9. How does Tiversa FileDetector™ Monitoring Service protect me? | back to top
Leading security experts have shown that inadvertent file sharing over P2P networks can be a major cause of fraud and ID theft. Tiversa’s FileDetector™ Monitoring Service tells you when your personal or sensitive information has become available to other P2P file sharing users. The user can then take the appropriate actions including removing P2P software or changing the location of the information to protect it from view.
10. How much does FileDetector cost? | back to top
Tiversa FileDetector Monitoring Service costs only $24.95 a year – that’s at little more than $2 / month or about 6.5 cents a day. This gives twelve months of protection at a price that you typically pay for only one month of identify theft and security services.
11. What if I set-up P2P file sharing software properly? | back to top
While setting up P2P file sharing properly may mitigates the risks associated with inadvertent file sharing, it does not completely address it. For instance, if you move a downloaded file to a directory that wasn’t a part of your original shared folder, P2P systems will index these other folders. This is called redistribution. In addition, malicious code introduced by clicking on a file which you thought was a legitimate file could introduce a worm or virus which shares files not originally intended for sharing.
12. If there is such a big security problem with the P2P network why haven’t I heard
about it? | back to top
The security risks associated with P2P file sharing have been known for some time. This issue has been masked by a comparatively larger focus on copyright violations caused by the transfer of copyrighted music, movies, and software.
What isn’t as well known is the pervasiveness and magnitude is the indavertent file-sharing problem. Tiversa has a unique perspective on this problem given that our systems let us observe the collective activity and file availability across P2P file sharing networks globally in real time.
This perspective was recently highlighted in Tiversa’s Testimony to the House Oversight Committee and covered in the news media.
See Tiversa’s News & Events section for more details.
13. How does Tiversa FileDetector™ Monitoring Service work? | back to top
Tiversa’s File Detector™ Service is a unique patent pending system comprised of two parts – a piece of software that runs on your computer and a P2P monitoring service that runs in Tiversa’s global data center.
Tiversa’s P2P monitoring system “looks” for a unique triple encrypted file created by the software on your computer. If seen by Tiversa’s P2P monitoring system, Tiversa issues an e-mail alert to you.
Each e-mail alert tells you which file directory has been exposed to P2P File Sharing networks and gives you instructions on what actions you may take to remove the software, if you did not intend for this directory to be shared. |
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Protect your personal & sensitive files with Tiversa FileDetector™ Monitoring Services
$24.95 |
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