As the federal government’s quickly learned, there’s an easy way for employees to leak sensitive information into the wrong hands.
The security threat: peer-to-peer (P2P) networking. Many people use P2P networks to share various types of documents, usually music and movies (and often illegally). But un-savvy users may inadvertently be sharing the entire contents of their hard drive.
And many may be doing it at work.
That’s apparently the case in the federal government, as legislators met recently to discuss a bill that would ban file-sharing software from all government computers and networks, the Washington Post reports.
The bill comes after the recent discovery of several information leaks by Tiversa, a company that scours file-sharing networks to find security holes.
Among the info left out for anyone who wanted to grab it: photos of a mafia hitman taken while he was on trial, a list of people with HIV, the location of a safe-house for then first lady Laura Bush, motorcade routes and the names of some people in a witness protection program.
Maybe the ban on P2P software in federal offices is a good idea — and private companies may be wise to follow suit.
