Malware in Pirated Software: Case Study of Malware Encounters in Personal Computers

Software piracy is a common occurrence, and a significant fraction of the personal computers have some pirated software installed. Cyber-criminals often use pirated software as a vector to spread malware by bundling malicious software with the pirated software. This paper presents the results of a case study that aims to quantify the incidence of malware in pirated software that come bundled with new personal computer purchases. The paper also evaluates the types of malware that are present in the samples in our case study, and the locations in the file system where these malware are detected. The results show that 63% of the samples procured for the case study showed presence of malware and the incidence of malware varies with the geographical location where the sample was procured. Our results also indicate that Trojans and Hacktools are the most prevalent families of malware in our samples.