P2P - Skype Control
P2P networks, once the province largely of music fans at home, are popping up on corporate desktops
everywhere. Music, video, and other bandwidth hogging application clog networks and expose corporations
to breach of copyright litigation.
P2P applications like Skype, the popular Voice over IP program, offer potentially significant cost
and productivity benefits, yet many organization’s still require control and visibility over their use.
P2P file sharing applications share one glaring problem - they are opening up huge, unmonitored, network
security holes:
- Grokster offers free, fast searching and downloads, file previews and other apparently useful
tools. Unfortunately it also degrades network performance and silently installs other less beneficial
applications like Cydoor and Gator.
- Morpheus offers marketers the ability to track visits to high profile shopping sites. However,
while it's doing so, it's installing a Web browser add-on that sends users on an invisible Web detour
to capture information about surfing habits.
All of this poses a major challenge to IT departments - how to let users benefit from advances in P2P
technology while providing a level of control and visibility that enables IT to block P2P connections
that may endanger network security.
Security Risks of P2P
Because P2P networks are installed on local client machines and link directly to the Internet, those
client machines are wide open to abuse that's uncontrolled by standard information security measures.
The protocols used by these applications are stealthy, often encrypting themselves or tunneling undetected
through open ports.
Over and above the potential for productivity loss and bandwidth and storage resource abuse through
employee usage of unauthorized software, P2P networks can:
- Open up back doors into the network, allowing hackers direct access to corporate assets and putting
the organization in breach of privacy legislation
- Enable the exchange of copyrighted material, rendering the corporation vulnerable to breach of copyright
lawsuits
- Overload network bandwidth with unauthorized file sharing activities
- Allow bundled adware applications to be installed on the network without the user's knowledge
Given the seriousness of the risks and the potential damage to the organization that accompanies the uncontrolled use of P2P networks, IT departments need a powerful tool that will enable the productive use of P2P while protecting against their intentional or unintentional abuse. Point products such as desktop anti-virus or anti-spyware solutions don't have the range of controls needed; FaceTime’s defense in depth approach allows organizations access to the beneficial aspects of P2P without compromising your network and data.
P2P Control - The Solution
FaceTime offers the only end-to-end security solution that empowers IT departments to control the use
of P2P networks, allowing organizations to:
- Prevent unauthorized P2P connections
- Block unauthorized adware installations
- Ensure non-stop protection with the latest protocol updates
- Mitigate business and security risk
- Obtain critical insight into bandwidth abuse, source and destination IP addresses, and port abuse
Learn More about USG, FaceTime's Secure Web Gateway,
the only Secure Web Gateway to combine content monitoring, management and security of Web 2.0 applications,
such as social networks, instant messaging and Unified Communications, with URL filtering, anti-malware
and Web anti-virus protection.
Learn More about Vantage, the de facto platform for
granular security, policy controls and compliance features for real time and unified communications
(UC) – providing management for the widest variety of UC and real time communications platforms; including
Microsoft OCS and IBM Lotus Sametime, public instant messaging platforms such as Windows Live and Skype,
web conferencing and industry focused networks like Reuters, Bloomberg and YellowJacket.
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