Is pirated software worth it?

Imagine that your computer is your home, that place where you live with your loved ones, your pet; you have dinner with your family in the warmth of a fireplace while the faint moonlight comes through the window and illuminates the crystalline eyes of your children, small… fragile, those people who trust you, you do not want anything bad to happen to them, right?

Well, if you are a responsible person, you will have to look for protection, someone to defend everything you want, to watch over you, to be your right hand, but can you blindly trust someone? Let’s continue with the example of the house, in the next neighborhood there are criminals, some of them are organ traffickers, one of them offers to take care of your house in exchange for the use of your game center, do you accept or do you prefer to think about it? the local security company has told you that the annual value will be equivalent to 80% of one of your salaries, the immediate cost difference is very tempting, in the end he will do the same, guard the doors, walk the perimeter of the house, confront someone, do you trust, remember the sparkle in his children’s eyes, the serene smile of the grandmother, the warmth of home and those important documents that will ensure your old age, the family health insurance, is it important, right?

Pirate or original, I will tell you something, appearances can be deceiving, if you are a believer you will have heard about false prophets, the same happens with technology, you get something that looks good and is easily acquired, but you don’t know what it will do to your computer, cracked programs bring the modified base code and a generic serial number, with the promise to last a lifetime, but viruses appear every day, an average of 30,000 a day, a trojan is ready in 60 seconds and the massive ones like Ransomware are ready in a month or 3; and let’s not even talk about the antivirus “licensed for 20 years” that you downloaded from some fraudulent site.

There are 8 types of viruses:
1. Resident.
They lodge in the computer’s memory and are activated when the operating system is running, infecting all files that are opened, they remain there even after the malicious code has been executed. They have control over system memory and allocate memory blocks through which they execute their own code, their goal is to corrupt files and programs when they are opened, closed, copied, renamed, a very common one of this type is the one that showed your pendrive as a folder or the one that duplicated files.

2. Direct action.
The goal of these computer viruses is to replicate and act when executed. When a specific condition is met, the virus will go into action to infect files in the directory or folder specified in the autoexec.bat file, this batch file is always in the root directory of the hard disk and loads certain operations when the computer starts. The virus infects one after another all the files it finds that you have previously selected.
It is also capable of infecting external devices, every time the code is executed this type of computer virus changes its location to infect new files, but it is usually located in the root directory of the storage drive.

3. Overwriting.
These computer viruses are characterized by deleting the information contained in the files they infect, making them partially or totally useless once infected, the virus replaces the contents of the file without changing its size. The only way to clean a file infected by an overwriting virus is to delete it completely, thus losing the original content. However, it is very easy to detect this type of virus as the original program becomes useless.

4. Boot sector.
This type of virus affects the boot sector, a crucial part of the disk where the information that allows the computer to boot is located.

5. Macro viruses.
Macro viruses infect files that are created with certain applications or programs containing macros such as .docx, .xls, .ppsx, etc. These mini-programs allow to automate a series of operations so that they are carried out as if they were a single action, saving the user from having to carry out them one by one, this type of computer virus automatically infects the file that contains macros and also infects the templates and the documents that contain the file that commonly arrive by e-mail.

6. Polymorphic viruses.
They are encrypted or encoded differently, using different algorithms and encryption keys each time they infect a system, this makes antivirus software unable to track them through string or signature searches because they are different each time.

7. FAT viruses.
The FAT file allocation table is the part of the disk that is used to store all the information about the location of files, available space, space that should not be used, and so on. This type of virus can be especially dangerous as it prevents access to certain sections of the disk where important files are stored, the damage caused can result in the loss of information from individual files and even entire directories.

8. Web scripting.
Many web pages include complex code to create interesting and interactive content, this code is often exploited by this type of computer virus to produce certain unwanted actions.
Enough for today, but you should know that not all original antivirus are paid, some have the free option with few limitations but enough for home, they protect you from Trojans, worms, blockers, detect malicious installers and are active in the background which ensures that your computer works well without you having to scan it manually, keep in mind that an antivirus uses resources, RAM, storage, cache, but that’s nothing on a computer today, if you have 4GB of RAM consider yourself lucky you will not feel the load of the antivirus.

Recommendations:
- Caution when browsing, downloading or connecting external devices.
- Download programs from official sites, yes, free versions are also downloaded from the official site, no need to look elsewhere.
- If you are going to use a program and there is only the paid version but you want to save those dollars, opt for open source programs, they do the same job.
- Messages that say you have won a prize or that your pc or mobile is infected and you must download an application to fix it, are fake ads, do not click there, they will steal your data.
- Stop using porn or use a specialized browser to protect yourself.
- Don’t send your passwords or credentials to any site, banks or telephone operators never ask users for data or conduct contests outside their official sites.
- If you have to register on a site to download something or on a public WI-FI network, use a temporary email, it will disappear in 24 hours.
- In case someone has played a trick on you or you have become paranoid, avoid looking for “hackers” on the web.