A common but illegal practice is to download counterfeit software products, also known as "cracked" software. The digital signatures for the executable files are invalidated, and users of the cracked software unknowingly put themselves at a significant risk.
In addition to the obvious legal risks and embarrassment, there are very real dangers to intellectual property and online security.
Please realize that a person or organization knowledgeable enough to crack the copy protection of a software product can easily make additional changes to the code.
The organizations behind these efforts include well-funded criminal syndicates, mercenary organizations, and government agencies.
What could cracked software be made to do?
Another risk is code that quietly siphons and filters intellectual property. While this includes any files of value on a computer, DWG files are an attractive target for the following reasons:
The frequency of these types of attacks have been increasing significantly. Embedding malware in cracked copies of software products is easy for knowledgeable exploiters, and because cracked copies of software cannot be updated, they must be downloaded repeatedly. The result is that the malware payload can be changed, redirected, and customized.