Peer to Peer (P2P), What’s that? You use torrent, that’s P2P.
You download music, that’s P2P, Movies. Videos, Software downloads, that’s P2P. That means, someone else on the other side of the globe is sharing a file and you are one of a million peer to download that file.
It uses the internet as the way or you can say the link to share files, music, movies etc. But what to you should consider is that, P2P is for most parts is illegal, mostly because it violates copyright laws.
Risks in Peer to Peer file transfer,
- P2P client (say Bittorrent) opens ports in your machine. For example, Bittorrent opens a range of ports(6881-6999). Your P2P client talks to other peers using these port numbers, In-fact whenever you browse the web you use the port 80 (HTTP), Now a cyber criminal can actually get into those open ports and steal your data. No need to get too scared! There are not many people waiting to steal your data, because you are one in billions of Peers connected! This specific attack type can result in Identity Theft, and these are not very likely to happen unless YOU are really targeted by the user, moreover P2P clients have security mechanisms in them too to protect you.
Solution: Use AntiVirus
- Secondly, When you download P2P files, they are not always legitimate, and they may contain malware and spyware and other viruses.
Solution: Use AntiVirus
- Some people may call it hacking, and bad but the truth is always bitter. What you are downloading is itself illegal because of copyrights and reporting such attacks may raise you penalty! So, many fears reporting such issues, and that’s some basic risks in P2P
