Why Some Organization Restricts P2P Application

Why Some Organization Restricts P2P Application

Some Universities and Organizations currently restricts illegal peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing on the campus network. You may use P2P technologies for legitimate purposes like gaming, open source downloads, and licensed distribution of media files. However, using P2P software to violate copyright laws carries a number of possible sanctions, including loss of Internet access, referral to the appropriate internal disciplinary process, and even civil or criminal charges.

What is P2P Application?
Peer to Peer (P2P) Application is a connection between individual computers via the Internet. It has come to be the method of choice for illegally distributing copyrighted works like music, movies and software.

Why does the University restrict P2P?
Our computer and Network Use Policy states that acceptable use "shows restraint in the consumption of shared resources." P2P software is a major drain on campus technology resources. Left unchecked, P2P applications will consume all available campus network bandwidth and nobody will be able to access the internet. P2P software also generates a disproportionate amount of work for the university's Service Desk and IT Security staff, both through the side effects of spyware-laden clients and through the effort needed to respond to DMCA complaints filed against students by the entertainment industry.

Partial Listing Of Restricted Programs
If you have any of the following programs downloaded onto your computer, you will want to remove them in addition to any other file sharing programs you may have. 

• Ares
• Azureus
• BitComent
• BitLord
• BitTornado
• BitTorrent
• FlashGet
• Gnutella
• KaZaA
• LimeWire
• Skype
• Shareaza
• uTorrent
•  

NOTE: 

these activities affect the quality of network resources because of the high amount of internet bandwidth required to process. Using such services also poses a security threat to the University and campus network since the same way files are shared, viruses can also be transferred from computer to computer. And worst of all, the user of such services is potentially leaving their computer open to hackers who could obtain confidential information from that user and other users on the network, and/or can open the doorway for other campus resources (such as servers) to be exploited. 

As Finding P2P Application Effect Using SKYPE by Sourcefire Vulnerability research Team as Follow

Summary
This event is generated when network traffic that indicates Skype is being used. This is a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) application.

Impact
Possible policy violation. The use of Skype may be prohibited by corporate policy in some network environments.

Detailed Information
This event indicates that the Skype is being used on the protected network.
Peer-to-Peer applications may also be used as a vector to transfer worms and viruses past Anti-Virus defenses onto a protected network.

Affected Systems
All systems using Skype

Attack Scenarios
This is a possible policy violation, it may be that Skype has been installated on a client host.
Peer-to-Peer clients can be used to transmit confidential corporate information out of the protected network.

Ease of Attack
Simple.

Corrective Action
Disallow the use of Skype on the protected network and enforce or implement an organization wide policy on the use of Skype.

Contributors
Sourcefire Vulnerability Research Team