DVDs, PCs with pre-installed software may have malware: Study

A recent study on the linkages between the use of pirated and counterfeit software and data breaches reveal that the malwares detected in the majority of samples could pose risk to Intellectual Property (IP) theft and data leakage.
According to a study by independent forensic science lab, Truth Labs, 65 per cent of the tested samples of DVDs and PCs with pre-installed softwares are affected by one or more kind of malwares.
The study -- Piracy and Counterfeit Software: Emerging Risks and Threats to Public Safety and National Security -- tested a total of 230 samples consisting of 174 samples on DVDs and 56 pre-installed products in laptops from 10 geographical locations across the country in collaboration with Microsoft India.

"The majority of the malware identified in the samples enabled remote access and control by hackers followed by backdoors and kwylogger which pose a threat to the privacy of the user," Truth Labs Founder Chairman Gandhi Kaza said here.
Remote access, remote code execution and attacks by trojans and worms were the three major categories of threats found in the samples, he added.
Ninety per cent of the samples in the form of DVDs gave false positive results in anti-piracy check tests, thereby cheating the user to believe the installed product to be a genuine one, Kaza said.
"Cyber criminals exploit every opportunity to make easy profit and users need to be aware of these pitfalls as they can easily fall prey to such tactics," CERT-In Director General Gulshan Rai said.

The use of infected softwares can cause damage to not just the government and enterprises, but also individual users, he added.