Andre Yoskowitz
3 Oct 2007 13:38
The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has announced that in the first six months of 2007 it prevented over 36,000 unauthorized software products from being sold on numerous online auction sites.
The Alliance also said that the retail value of the pirated software that could have been sold on the auction sites came out to over $8 million USD.
"And this is the tip of the iceberg", said John Wolfe, director of internet enforcement at the BSA.
"This represents auctions we have identified as infringing our members' copyrights and taken action to have them closed by the auction site owners. Some auction offers may lead to dozens or even hundreds of purchases of illegal software."
"When buying software on auction sites, people need to be concerned if prices appear too good to be true. Counterfeit copies may not give you the functionality and full benefits of a legal version.
There is also a significant data protection risk in that counterfeit software may be linked to hackers looking to access your network," Wolfe added.
In a separate but related study performed by IDC, the group revealed that over 50% percent of software purchased on auction sites have had malware embedded into the code.
Source:
Pocketlint