AV companies mark these activators as PUP (Potentially Unwanted Programs or Keygens). An activator is a piece of software that can illegally bypass trial mode forever by patching the code in the software that actually checks for trial expiry. But the activators/patchers/keygens that accompany these software in several cases can contain malware. In this, the software which the user intends to install in their system is usually a trial version which is legitimate. Mostly a software and its activator are shared in these sites for the user to download as a bundle. These files are categorized according to their actual behaviour as shown in Figure 1.

These were downloaded from various sites among which Torrents were the predominant source.

Our telemetry data for the last three months were filtered to extract filenames that contain keywords like “Crack”, “Activator”, “Keygen”, “Serial key”, “Loader” and “Patch”. There are no specific rules in our country to regulate the download and usage of copyrighted content and hence this piracy business thrives here.įigure 1: Categorisation of Malware present in such Activation Software Torrenting can be legal, illegal or a bit of both based on the demography. Piracy tempts this bunch, and makes them a victim of malicious attacks. It is normal for people to incline towards stuffs that are “free”.

Pirated software means a user may not get proper updates (feature and security) to that software and eventually contract malware either at the time of installation or via security flaws in an outdated software. This goes to show that users are eventually compromising their devices. Threat actors do their fair share of abusing such services, They run malware campaigns by bundling malware with “Cracked Software” whose torrents are uploaded to such sites. The websites that host such torrents not only drop malware on to a victim’s system but also earn money via advertisements through distribution of adware. While torrenting is not illegal by itself, it is often associated with sharing copyrighted material like movies, games and software which amounts to piracy and hence illegal. Torrenting is a popular form of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing.

Cobalt strike torrent