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Should Cracks and Keygens Remain a Cybersecurity Concern?





Many users, particularly those that don’t want to spend tons of money on software licenses, still troop to crack and keygen sites. While not all of them are malicious, many of their offerings could put individuals and companies at great risk.1  

TIP researchers sought to find out if cracks and keygens and the websites that host them remain a threat. Using an initial list of 39 domains identified as indicators of compromise (IoCs) related to the grayware, our in-depth investigation aided by WHOIS, DNS, and IP intelligence uncovered:

  • 500 IP addresses to which the domains identified as IoCs resolved, most of which were U.S.-based
  • More than 10 email addresses used to register the domains tagged as IoCs
  • More than 150 additional domains possibly connected to the IoCs since they shared their registrant email addresses and IP hosts
  • More than 8,000 additional domains containing the strings “crack,” “keygen,” and “serial,” 81 of which are malicious according to various malware engines

Download a sample of the threat research materials now.

  • [1] https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/security-reasons-dont-download-cracked-software/
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