Risk of malware in pirated software

V današnji digitalni dobi je internet dostopen praktično že vsakomur, z razvojem interneta in informacijske tehnologije pa se je istočasno razvijalo tudi digitalno piratstvo. V diplomskem delu smo se osredotočili na piratstvo programske opreme. To je vsako širjenje licenčne programske opreme brez dovoljenja avtorja. Kdo in kako jo širi? Za to v prvi vrsti skrbijo Warez skupine. To so podzemne internetne skupine, ki se ukvarjajo z odstranjevanjem zaščite licenčnim verzijam programske opreme in širjenju takšne programske opreme po najrazličnejših piratskih spletnih straneh. Na piratskih spletnih straneh pa se kot smo ugotovili v praktičnemu testu v okviru diplomskega dela relativno pogosto pojavlja tudi zlonamerno programje, katerega kibernetski zločinci širijo po najrazličnejših piratskih spletnih straneh predvsem z namenom kraje osebnih podatkov. V teoretičnem ozadju smo poleg tega pisali še o vrstah piratstva programske opreme, o zlonamernemu programju v piratski programski opremi in načinih njegovega zaznavanja in analize. Cilj diplomske naloge je bil z uporabo praktičnega testa raziskati obseg zlonamernega programja v datotekah dostopnih na slovenskih in tujih piratskih spletnih straneh. Omejili smo se na aktivatorje Microsoftovih aplikacij Office ter operacijskega sistema Windows. Na slovenski piratski spletni strani smo analizirali 23 na tuji pa 26 takšnih datotek. Ugotovili smo, da je bilo v datotekah iz tuje piratske spletne strani precej več zlonamernega programja s hujšimi tipi groženj. Poleg testa pa smo v diplomskemu delu izvedli še anketo, v okviru katere smo skušali izvedeti odnos anketirancev do piratske programske opreme. Na podlagi 55 izpolnjenih spletnih anketnih vprašalnikom pa smo prišli do ugotovitev, zakaj in kako pogosto se odločajo posamezniki za uporabo piratske programske opreme, kako na to vpliva cena licenčne programske opreme in kako, če sploh, se zavedajo negativnih posledic uporabe piratske programske opreme. Na podlagi rezultatov smo prišli do ugotovitev, da posamezniki relativni pogosto uporabljajo piratsko programsko opremo ter, da bi lahko bil eden izmed glavnih razlogov za to dokaj visoka cena licenčne programske opreme. Prav tako smo ugotovili, da posamezniki nimajo veliko slabih izkušenj z uporabo piratske programske opreme in se morda posledično premalo zavedajo negativnih posledic njene uporabe.In today\u27s digital age the Internet is accessible to almost everyone but the development of Internet and information technology also caused the development of digital piracy. In our study, we focused on software piracy. That is every form of spreading licensed software without author\u27s permission. Who spreads it and how? That is mostly taken care of by Warez groups. These are underground Internet groups whose main focus is on removing protection from licensed software and redistributing of unprotected pirated software on torrent websites. As we found out in our test, this kind of websites often contain pirated software that contains various forms of malware which is used to steal personal data. In theoretical background of our study we also wrote about types of software piracy, about malware in pirated software and also about effective ways of detecting and analyzing this kind of malware. The main goal in our study was to find out the volume of malware in torrent accessible on domestic and foreign websites by conducting a practical test. We decided that we are going to limit ourselves to only torrents containing activators for Microsoft Office or Microsoft Windows. Therefore we analyzed 23 files on Slovenian and 26 files on foreign website. The results have shown that the files from foreign website contain much higher volume of malware and also malware with higher risks. We also conducted a survey where we tried to find out respondent\u27s relationship with pirated software. Based on 55 correct responses we have come to conclusions about why and how frequent respondents use pirated software, how is that affected by price of licensed software and how are respondents aware of negatives of using pirated software. Based on results we have found out that respondent’s use of pirated software is relatively frequent and that one of the main reasons behind this could be fairly high prices of licensed software. We have also found out that respondents don\u27t have a lot of bad past experience with pirated software and that they are perhaps unaware of many negatives of using pirated software