Pirated software worth more than $500 million (£242 million) has been seized by authorities in China as part of a joint operation run by Chinese police and the FBI. The syndicates targeted by the raids in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong are believed to have distributed more than $2 billion (£968 million) worth of counterfeit software to countries around the world, including the UK.Chinese police arrested 25 people and shut down six manufacturing and retail facilities as part of the operation, which was described by officials in China as "an unprecedented co-operative effort" with the FBI. More than 290,000 counterfeit software CDs were seized by the Chinese Public Security Bureau (PSB), including 47,000 which contained fake Microsoft products, such as the Windows Vista operating system and the Office suite.
As many as a third of UK businesses were unaware they were running counterfeit software in their organisation, Microsoft said.
Managing the Risk of Counterfeiting is one of the many subjects addressed in Security Management Stage 3, 24th Sep - 5th October. Contact Janet for details.
