Managing Torrents

A Torrent or BitTorrent is a common way of downloading and sharing files, particularly large files, such as audio albums, videos, TV series and other content categories that organisations responsible for safeguarding should control.

Some organisations use Torrent technology to distribute large software release files more quickly, or speed up legitimate video on demand delivery, however the vast majority of the real world use is the sharing and download of pirate video, audio and cracked software releases which may also contain malware.

Most modern firewalls contain application controls to block this type traffic and content classification controls for the websites that index torrent information making it possible for users to select and download content. These controls are only effective if properly enforced by strong management of DNS, VPN and Proxy blocking, a rigorous firewall policy, and additional data from external sources to assist with those controls.

In some cases it may be a more effective control to rate limit torrent traffic to extremely low levels to avoid excessive retrying and blocked log generation that sometimes causes, while effectively making the uploads or downloads completely unproductive for the users, and utilising monitoring and reporting tools to identify undesired use of torrents to correct user behaviour.

Torrent traffic may also be routed via a commercial VPN to obfuscate its use and to prevent detection of unlawful copyrighted material downloads.