Today many organizations exchanging data between computer systems across TCP/IP networks are facing serious challenges. Although FTP is a widely adopted standard for exchanging files across different platforms, the standard implementations of FTP have no encryption capabilities whatsoever. User names, passwords, and files transferred are sent across the network in the clear, making FTP transfers vulnerable against sniffer attacks to spy out system passwords and confidential data.

With every PC in your organisation connected to the Internet and the threats emating from it, the threat "sniffing attacks" applies not only to external networks: if an attacker installs a Trojan horse onto a PC within your organisation, he has become a "virtual insider" and this is why internal network need to be protected as well. For a detailed discussion of that topic, see the article NonStop Network Security available under Publications.