According to Kaspersky, this might have serious effects.
A sizable portion of small to medium-sized organizations is willing to utilize pirated versions of commercial software to save IT costs.
So, what is pirated software?
Pirated software is software that has been replicated and redistributed without permission. A variety of practices could be classified as software piracy, with the prime example of someone who copies software and sells it as a “cheaper/affordable” version.
What is Kaspersky’s research actually?
According to the latest Kaspersky study, project management, marketing, and sales software were the most popular categories of software to pirate, with 56% of respondents willing to consider pirating a piece of cybersecurity software. Kaspersky claims that in eight months, 9,685 of its users experienced harmful malware and unwanted software packages posing as popular SME software solutions.
What types of software are pirated?
During the course of the investigation, Kaspersky claims to have discovered 4,525 distinct harmful or highly dangerous files transferred via illegally downloaded including pirated SMB-related software.
However, it was discovered that just 7% of small enterprises with fewer than 50 employees were prepared to take such a move. Kaspersky stated that this sort of behavior may have a major impact on corporate cyber security, illustrating how hackers can deliberately disseminate dangerous files disguised as regularly used software in order to circumvent firewalls and infect enterprises.
How do hackers use pirated software to their advantage?
Although Cybercriminals rely on email as the primary infection vector, cracked software downloadable via torrents is yet another trick that criminals use to lure victims into installing malware on their systems. This business environment can lead to more data being compromised or stolen.
What are other alternatives?
When it comes to economic constraints organizations are advised to employ “reputable, community-backed, free open-source alternatives that are significantly less likely to include dangerous code.
Aside from trying out open-source software, Kaspersky suggests offering staff ordinary accounts with no administrative privileges to help prevent hacking systems.
The company also stated that if your device is slowing down, overheating, or making a lot of noise even when no one is using it, someone may have put a crypto miner on the device, which is overloading the processing and video.
Why do businesses use pirated software?
One of the persistent challenges for developing economies is their small and medium-sized organizations cannot afford licensed software services. This has increased the likelihood of businesses using counterfeited software over the years. As they are under-budgeted to install licensed versions.
The problem is that the long-term recurrent expenditures for purchasing systems are unmanageable in terms of cost-to-profit ratio. Another problem is maintaining them in good condition. In economies where the cost of establishing IT services is equal to an individual’s annual salary. Many small and medium businesses rely on counterfeited software or low-quality customized software solutions to function. The majority of multinational organizations that provide IT and cloud-based services are exorbitant which certain company models just cannot afford.
What are the consequences of using pirated software?
If you use pirated software, you should be concerned about more than simply the attention of copyright attorneys. You also run the danger of putting viruses on your systems. Pirated files frequently contain viruses and malware that can slow down or fully shut down your computers. You will not only lose time and maybe money, but you will also have to pay to get the problem rectified. To make matters worse, the software you install may be ransomware. If this occurs, you will be locked out of your computers unless you pay the culprits a ransom.
An authentic software developer will swiftly produce patches to address the issues, releasing them through the internet via a website download or an automatic updating procedure. People that use pirated software, are typically not included in this; they simply do not receive the updates and patches. Not only will they miss out on new features, but they will also miss out on vital security upgrades. That means that even if their pirated software isn’t infected with malware, they’re likely to have security flaws that hackers could easily.
