A crisis. The popularity of pirated software has grown in Russia for the first time.

The BSA International Software Manufacturers Association has been studying the situation with unlicensed software in Russia for 13 years. BSA is actively fighting piracy, but by the end of 2015, it is a sad fact that, for the first time in the entire measurement history, the share of unlicensed software on the Russian market has increased .

Experts say that the level of piracy could be even higher if vendors had not tied customers to cloud services on time.

"The level of use of unlicensed software in Russia in 2015 was 64%, which is 2 percentage points higher than the 2013 level, when a similar study was conducted for the last time. The commercial value of unlicensed software installed on personal computers in Russia amounted to 1.341 billion US dollars, ”the report says . 1,341 billion dollars is the lost profits of software manufacturers.

BSA believes that the increase in the level of unlicensed software is largely due to a general weakening in the Russian economy. The fall of the ruble led to an increase in the cost of imported software and a decrease in the disposable income of Russian software users, creating fertile ground for using unlicensed software products.

Worldwide, in 2015 the share of unlicensed software continued to decline and reached 39% (in 2013 it was 43%). Experts are surprised that “even in those industries that traditionally have special requirements for IT security, the share of unlicensed software was surprisingly high. The results of the study showed that, on average, the total share of illegal software in the banking sector, insurance and in the securities sector was about 25%. ”

As an alternative to piracy and free software, the BSA Alliance proposes to implement Software Asset Management (Software Asset Management) policies that help assess the need for software, avoid relicensing, and use only necessary software.

As usual, BSA repeats the thesis that when installing an unlicensed copy of the program, the company is allegedly at risk of cyber attacks. “The costs that companies sometimes incur to eliminate the effects of such malware can be overwhelming. So, only in 2015, cyber attacks inflicted damage to businesses, the amount of which exceeded a total of 400 billion dollars, ”BSA representatives cite such frightening figures. The Alliance believes that if you bring this thesis to the directors of Russian companies, they will understand the need to install licensed software.