The most common cause of compromised sites we clean.
WHAT IT IS
Premium themes, plugins or applications distributed free, with licence checks removed.
WHY PEOPLE USE IT
The legitimate version costs money and the free one appears identical.
WHAT IS ACTUALLY IN IT
Whoever removed the licence check also modified the code. In a large proportion of cases they added something: a backdoor, a hidden administrator account, spam link injection, or a card skimmer.
This is not occasional. It is the business model.
WHAT HAPPENS
The site works normally for weeks or months. Then spam pages appear, or customer card details are stolen, or the account is used to send spam and is suspended.
Cleaning it is expensive, and the damage to customer trust is worse.
WHAT IT COSTS YOU
Far more than the licence would have. A malware cleanup, lost business, possibly a blacklisting, and for a shop possibly a card data breach.
THE ALTERNATIVES
Free versions of premium plugins, which are frequently sufficient A cheaper legitimate product Buying the licence
There is no safe source for nulled software. Not one.
