‘Commercial value of unlicensed software in Jordan reaches $34m in 2015’

AMMAN — The commercial value of unlicensed software in Jordan reached $34 million in 2015, according to a recent survey. 

Some 56 per cent of software in Jordan is not licensed, placing the Kingdom fifth among the Arab world for the lowest use of pirated software, according to the Business Software Alliance (BSA) Global Software Survey.

The figure is a marginal decrease from 57 per cent in 2013 and 58 per cent in 2014. 

In the UAE, which ranked first in the Arab world, usage of pirated software stands at 34 per cent, while the worst Arab country for unlicensed software was Libya, where 90 per cent of software is unlicensed. 

The BSA analysed data and looked at software trends in 116 markets. 

Global use of unlicensed software remains high, despite costly cyber-security threats, the report found. 

Around 39 per cent of software installed on computers around the world in 2015 is not properly licensed, representing only a modest decrease from 43 per cent in BSA’s previous global study in 2013.

Many chief information officers (CIOs) simply do not know how much software employees are installing on company networks, the report found. 

CIOs estimate that 15 per cent of their employees load software on the network without their company’s knowledge, but in fact, nearly double this percentage of workers admitted doing this, the BSA said.

Twenty-six per cent of employees admitted installing outside software on work computers, and of those 84 per cent acknowledged installing two or more unauthorised programmes.  

CIOs told the BSA that avoiding security threats is a critical reason for ensuring the software running in their networks is legitimate and fully licensed. Some 49 per cent of CIOs identified security threats from malware as a major threat posed by unlicensed software, according to the survey. 

The report showed that 430 million new pieces of malware were discovered in 2015, up 36 per cent from 2014.

In 2015, more than half-a-billion personal information records were stolen or lost through data breaches, according to a report by the security firm Symantec.