As most of you know I spend a lot of time collecting software, plugins, scripts, etc from all the popular torrent and download sites out there on the internet. The purpose for this is to reverse engineer them to see what has been added to them from the virus writers, or other people out there looking to benefit from you downloading the software.
I research these downloads so much that I get to know pretty much which malware, or viruses, are being distributed on which P2P sites. When you do it as much as I do you begin the see many different patterns for distribution. But the bottom line is yes, you do end up getting a piece of software for FREE but is it really worth it? Some of the popular software releases, such as Photoshop and Flash, come with some real nasty viruses that are hard to remove.
Yes, before you mention that there are free malware forums on the internet that will help remove these infections, I do understand your thinking in that I will just install the software and then head over to one of these forums and get the malware removed for free. That doesn’t work all the time though. Some forums will not help you if you have cracked software, or signs of it on your computer. Others will only help you once and then you’re on your own. Some of the worse cases people don’t get the viruses removed at all and have to wipe their harddrives and do a complete reinstall. Unless you have very important data on your computer and REALLY need it then you have to seek the services of someone like me that knows these infections inside and out and can recover your data.
Only problem with that is this type of service doesn’t come cheap and most people, or companies, can’t afford it or realize they REALLY need to put in some measures to prevent employees and such from accessing these sites and downloading illegal software because it’s too expensive and cuts into the company’s bottomline.
So moral of the story, next time you download a piece of illegal software and think it’s awesome because I’m going to get this for FREE, thinking about it again and ask yourself, What else are you getting along with this software they the retail version doesn’t have? Because I can tell you one thing, you are going to get SOMETHING that you didn’t expect. It might be harmless and it might not but this software, by the time you get it on the P2P site, will have something added to it.
Please feel free to leave your comments on this subject and what you think?
