It warned them that the organisations would be violating the laws if they failed to prevent information sharing of sensitive data.

Such data could be used to commit identity fraud, corporate espionage and other crimes, it said. The FTC has opened non-public investigations of other companies whose data has been exposed on file-sharing networks.

In a recent investigation, the FTC discovered health-related information, financial records, driver's license and Social Security numbers leaked on P2P networks.

Last year, Tiversa, a vendor of P2P network-monitoring services, announced that it had found details on safe-house locations for the first family along with presidential motorcade routes and other sensitive data on a P2P network.