Peer-to-Peer Communication and Data Infringement Analysis Report

This report delves into the critical role of peer-to-peer (P2P) communication in cybersecurity, particularly concerning data infringement. It begins by defining data infringement and its various causes, including human error, weak passwords, and malware, highlighting the significant impact of breaches like the Capital One and Yahoo incidents. The report then explores measures taken by organizations and governments to prevent data infringements, while acknowledging their limitations. It emphasizes the effectiveness of peer-to-peer communication in reducing data infringement, specifically focusing on the security of data exchange between peers. Key security mechanisms discussed include identity authentication, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), and blockchain technology, with blockchain being highlighted as the most secure. The report concludes by acknowledging the impossibility of guaranteeing absolute security but emphasizes the availability of various methods to mitigate risks related to data fraudulence.

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A data infringement is a safety incident in which private and sensitive information is not
permitted to be released. The most common scenario is if the cybercriminals penetrate a database
and steal sensitive data, either simply by copying or distributing or using it. Data infringements
may reveal personal, political, credit, personal and corporate confidentiality numbers, software
codes, customers, and even copyrights (Lynch, 2016).
Data infringements can occur on a variety of grounds; targeted attacks can lead to identity
theft, cash robbery, or even happen by accident. Sadly, many cybercriminals are involved in data
infringements. A major problem with data infringements is that the attack and penetration into
the network will remain unrecognized for long durations. Even, they can never be identified
often. Human error, weak passwords, malware, and process failure are considered to be several
grounds of data infringement (Schwartz & Peifer, 2017).
Presently, near about 100 million consumers and over 30% of the American population
were impacted by the data infringement of Capital One. On 19th July 2019, it has been announced
by the company that some specific kinds of personal data in relation to the credit cards of the
consumers and other applicants of Capital One products have been seized by such a person who
is not an employee of that company. A woman from Seattle was arrested for suspicion of the
violation (News, 2020). In spite of this significant incident, the top five data infringements are
not broken at all. Yahoo, now owned by Verizon, actually experienced the biggest data
infringement in the history of the United States. In 2017, it has been admitted by Yahoo that
almost 3 billion account holders got affected by the data infringement incident of 2013. The
names, date of births, contact number and passwords were revealed of those accounts which
were encoded with essentially weak security code. Not only that, the hackers were also provided

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with safety issues and e-mail backup addresses in order to restore missing passwords that are
essential for infringing government computers (News, 2020).
After the happening of several incidents in this regard, various measures have been taken
by the organizations in order to prohibit data infringements. Besides the business organizations,
the US government also takes several steps to prevent data infringements, such as:
 By giving training to the workers of different companies;
 By applying strong passwords;
 By monitoring data and its transfer;
 By limiting access to data;
 By confirming two-factor process; and
 By limiting download of data.
Many researchers are of the view that this techniques are undoubtedly helpful in reducing
data infringement but not completely helpful. Some flaws are also observed in these techniques
(Kamleitner & Mitchell, 2019).
However, presently peer-to-peer communication is considered to be very effective in
reducing data infringement provided that it needs to be appropriate. Peer-to-peer communication
is regarded to be the transmission of data between two peer computers over a single network.
This concept becomes widely popular when computer users started to share mp3 and other files
over this networking system. The security of data or information exchange between partners is
the principal prerequisite for non-trivial P2P applications. The security depends upon the use of
application and what it needs to be protected exactly. Data security can be ensured by three
fundamental means-identity authentication, SSL and Blockchain, and the latter is actually the
most secure technology (Sang et al., 2015). It has been observed that the use of traditional

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‘ready-made’ technologies can often be used to enforce strong protection and identification is a
great instance of this. The SSL can be used with alike mechanism for both server and customer
verification. Web servers usually do not use SSL to verify clients because password checks are
easier to perform. However, it is preferable that the client and the server between the partners are
authenticated transparently via SSL, which is used in P2P applications.
Secure Sockets Layer or SSL is a safe and privacy-friendly protocol for communicating
with networks like the Internet. If an application (client) decides to connect with another
application, the client needs to open a socket to the server and in this way, a safe connection will
be established between the client and the server. When verification is complete and a safe link is
made, both applications can communicate securely.
The blockchain is very common nowadays, not only because it is used to build and run
cryptocurrencies as an integral technology, but also because it can safely and steadily carry out
online dealings via smart agreements, procurement and more. Blockchain, as the name infers, is
a sequence of blocks that write data of broker to a hash with respect to the previous block. It
helps in removing centralized vulnerability areas used by fraudsters for the cryptocurrency
trading.
It is therefore definitely impossible to guarantee absolute stable peer-to-peer networks or
any other mechanism or technology. However, there are various forms available to mitigate risks
regarding data fraudulence (Meessen & de Vries, 2017).

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Reference
Kamleitner, B., & Mitchell, V. (2019). Your data is my data: A framework for addressing
interdependent privacy infringements. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 38(4), 433-
450.
Lynch, M. P. (2016). The internet of us: Knowing more and understanding less in the age of big
data. WW Norton & Company.
Meessen, P. N., & de Vries, A. (2017). Long term data storage using peer-to-peer
technology. Radboud University.
News, A. (2020). The Capital One data breach is alarming, but these are the 5 worst corporate
hacks. Retrieved 2 March 2020, from https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/marriotts-data-
breach-large-largest-worst-corporate-hacks/story?id=59520391
Sang, Y., Lee, J. K., Kim, Y., & Woo, H. J. (2015). Understanding the intentions behind illegal
downloading: A comparative study of American and Korean college students. Telematics
and Informatics, 32(2), 333-343.
Schwartz, P. M., & Peifer, K. N. (2017). Transatlantic Data Privacy Law. Geo. LJ, 106, 115.