File sharing clampdown

Isis Forensics, a Lancaster University spin out company, has developed a tool to help businesses clamp down on illegal file sharing.

Businesses can face serious consequences from illegal file sharing that takes place on their network, whether the files contain confidential client data or copyrighted material such as music downloads.

But many companies appear to be powerless to stop it. As part of a study, Isis Forensics observed that more than a third of FTSE 100 companies and more than half of Fortune 100 companies were sharing copyrighted material such as music, films and software using Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file sharing software.

By building on P2P file sharing monitoring techniques, Isis Forensics can non-invasively monitor the file sharing activities of organisations based anywhere in the world and alert them should compromising behaviour be detected.

James Walkerdine of Isis Forensics said: 'The risks of illegal file sharing are huge. There have been examples of file sharing software bypassing a company’s network security. This has led to virus infiltration making company computers open to attack.