File Sharing Leads To Data Breach, Including Details Of A U.S. Supreme Court Justice

July 9, 2008 11:34 a.m. EST

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - The personal details of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer were among the data exposed online due to file sharing.

The unintended exposure of the name, date of birth and Social Security numbers of 2,000 clients of Wagner Resource Group, which counts Breyer, was the result of an online trading done by an employee of a McLean investment company using the file-sharing network LimeWire accessed from the firm's computer.

The breach was unnoticed for almost half a year, until a Washington Post reader discovered the information while searching LimeWire in June. Peer-to-peer networks like LimeWire link computers directly without going through a central Website to facilitate the exchange of online files like digital music, movies and files.

But most software that makes file sharing easy could be configured to permit access to a part, or even all, of a user's files.

Wagner stopped the further spread of its clients' information by hiring Tiversa. Robert Boback, chief executive of Tiversa explained 40 to 60 percent of all data leaks happen outside a company's network due to installation by the staff or contractors of file-sharing programs on the firm's computers.

In some instances diagrams of product still under development are already on the Net, with the developer unaware of the advance exposure the product got.

Among the previous victims of peer-to-peer data breach were the Walter Reed Army Medical center and Pfizer. Some of the data leaked from Wagner's files had been misused, like the date of birth and Social Security number of lawyer Steven Agresta. The information was used to open a phone line with A T and T. Agresta later received a $9,000 cellphone bill from the telecom firm.

Online file data harvesting once more came to the forefront when a U.S. court required Google to turn over information details on all YouTube views and postings under a lawsuit filed by Viacom for YouTube's alleged use of copyrighted materials from Viacom's television programs.