The insanity of piracy – damaging livelihoods and placing users at risk

by Creative Future, 11 August 2021

How much do you know about malware? Have you ever pirated content thinking that you weren’t hurting anyone? Creative Content Australia’s annual piracy research consistently demonstrates that Australian teens and adults who pirate more frequently are far more likely to encounter cyber issues than those who pirate less.

Further research shows that plenty of pirates are fully aware of the economic damage their actions cause to the livelihoods of millions of hard working creative professionals every year and have rationalised that choice in their minds.  But new research released by the Digital Citizens Alliance (DCA) in a report titled Piracy in the Pandemic 2021 reveals that exposure to malware by regularly pirating content online has even more risks than the many that pirates are probably already aware of, including:

• Stolen bank and credit card information
• Identity theft
• Locking the user’s computer and demanding a ransom fee to regain access to their files (also known as “ransomware”)

Read more from Creative Future as they summarise the key outcomes from the report and show how pirating content places you and your children at risk.

---

RELATED ARTICLE: Thousands of pirates infected by malware movie scam, by Jeff Stone, first published 28 April 2020 in CYBERSCOOP

---