Someone emailed me a link to a page on a crack site which purported to offer a crack for the Macro Scheduler 8.1 evaluation version. So I fired up Windows 2000 in Virtual PC and downloaded the “crack”. It contained two executable files. I scanned them with AVG Antivirus. One of the files contained a trojan. Since I was running under a Virtual PC environment it was safe to try this “crack” out anyway (I can easily trash/recreate the Virtual environment and the host PC is protected). Well, as expected, all it did was make some changes to the system and install the trojan. It didn’t do anything to Macro Scheduler. Macro Scheduler wasn’t cracked at all, but the O/S is now potentially compromised. Proves my point about how dangerous cracks can be. More often than not they aren’t cracks at all. Just trojan horses, keyloggers or viruses. Do yourself a favour, don’t download software cracks! Instead, if your issue is one of cost, email the developer and explain what you need the software for. You never know, they might even offer you a discount.
