ForeScout Insight

It is no surprise that workers using common peer-to-peer (P2P) networks to share media files may be putting corporations at risk of data theft. But the problem and potential impact may be larger then we think.

The loss of blueprints for President Obama’s Marine One helicopter (CNET 2/28/09) to a cyber thief in Iran is just one of many recent P2P network breaches.

ForeScout CounterACT’s unique ability to see every IP device connected to the network and control all connections down to the switch port is helping corporate enterprises and federal organizations protect against such theft. With CounterACT, any P2P program running on any IP device on the network can be automatically discovered, shutdown, and de-installed in real-time, with or without notification to the end-user.

Recent incidents that could have been prevented with CounterACT include:

• 1. A team of Dartmouth researchers found peer-to-peer (P2P) networks littered with sensitive healthcare information inadvertently made available by employees of hospitals and other healthcare facilities, as well as their collection agencies and other business partners. Scientific American, 2/20/2009
• 2. Wagner Resource Group and Supreme Court Justice Breyer – Peer-to Peer security breach led to the loss of personal information for 800 clients of a Washington-area investment firm, including that of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer that included private information, including birth dates and Social Security numbers – Nextgov, 7/10/09
• 3. Citigroup’s ABN Amro Mortgage Group – Files containing social security numbers and other personal information on over 5,000 customers of a Citigroup’s ABN Amro Mortgage Group were inadvertently downloaded onto an Internet P2P file-sharing network – Dark Reading – 9/24/2007.

Contact us to learn more about how ForeScout CounterACT can be used to plug P2P security holes in your network.