Meanwhile, Autodesk had long discontinued support for AutoCAD 2012. Even if Alex wanted to buy it legally, he couldn’t — not without a subscription to a modern version. But had he gone the legal route, he could have gotten AutoCAD for free as a student, with cloud storage and collaboration tools.
Within minutes, links appeared. He downloaded a 500 MB RAR file. The password was “1234” — simple enough. But when he ran the “crack,” his antivirus screamed. He ignored it. The software seemed to work.
Two days later, his design files were encrypted. A ransom note appeared: Pay 0.5 Bitcoin. His computer had become part of a botnet, and the cracked AutoCAD was a trojan horse.
