New research outlines “Software Piracy Approaches” and those responsible
V.i. Laboratories released new research showing how pirates go about “cracking” software the key groups responsible.
As the Flex platform from Acresso is most pervasive in the group studied (software with an average value of more than $4,000 USD per seat) their license solution showed the most cracks.
This research is obviously only a very small sample of all the applications that are shipping and those that have been cracked but it does show the main ways crackers attack software and areas where ISVs should put more effort to strengthen their products from this threat.
The headlines:
- Tampering or bypassing the embedded license enforcement is a key enabler of piracy.
- Acresso (formerly Macrovision) is still the predominant system used by high value software vendors. In this sample of 83 releases, 73 percent, or 60 releases, used a version of the Acresso FLEXnet licensing system.
- The top five piracy groups (out of 212) contributed 59 percent of the cracked releases in the research sample. The top five most active groups in this sample were Lz0 (Linear Zero), NULL, Shooters, LND (Legends Never Die) and Magnitude.
- Strengthening licensing using hardware dongles or tamper resistant licensing may be useful for preventing overuse within a licensed customer environment, but it should not be viewed as a defense against overt piracy.
For more information or to download the full report, please visit: http://vilabs.typepad.com/vilabs/2009/07/software-piracy-risk-assessment-report.html
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