Filesharing causes security breach

Filesharing was the cause of a major security breach that led to the personal details of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer being exposed recently.

Names, birth dates and social security numbers of 2,000 Wagner Resource Group clients, including Breyer, were exposed over the filesharing network of Limewire. For almost six month, the security breach went unnoticed.

It was, amazingly, a Washington Post reader who discovered the breach while using the filesharing service Limewire. Limewire gives users access to other people’s files. Believe it or not, 40% to 60% of all security breaches are the result of employees using filesharing services and leaving files vulnerable to exposure.

The risk of filesharing attacks poses a real risk for companies around the world, as company secrets can be leaked over the Internet. This isn’t the first of such filesharing cases and it will no doubt not be the last. It’s dumbfounding that large firms don’t have measures in place to prevent such things from happening.

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