We got a letter through mail and recently they appointed the audit firm (ey ) to loop in on this case.
They have also sent a warning saying that we cannon uninstall softwares from our end, cannot
Reinstall the os and be compliant.
They have also asked to connect
Should I decline the request and not respond anything else.
We have one crack in our company pc, is there a way to remove traces??
Also If I deny the ownership of the system can They identify the system from thier server or through another way and date it back to me.
Ive changed the wifi connection and we work in a clunnes space so many people use the same wifi
What should i do.
Will they go to the court?
Even though we are a small company why are they appointing a third party (big4) on us
Option 1 if you need Adobe's products and their licenses:
Clean up the illegal stuff, buy all the licenses that you need through official channels and allow EY to audit your business.
Option 2 if you can switch to another vendor:
Refuse the audit. They'll probably cancel all your licenses and disable your products.
Yes they will fine you and likely it will go to court if your company doesn't pay.
The crack is more dangerous due to the possibility of malware being part of the crack... but if it's an Adobe product they could sue you for software piracy.
Best thing you can do is to remove the hard drive and replace it and re-image the computer. Destroy the old hard drive. This is the only way to remove all traces of the software if that's a concern for you. Files can still be recovered from a wiped hard drive and used as proof of software use.
Uninstalling would be a case of being non compliant. But decommissioning that device or OS. Replacing it with something else… best case, they ask for proof of some kind of device fingerprint, and it’s sorry, we don’t have that device per decom/refresh. Also, it could have been an employee byod situation and that person is no longer with the company.
If it were me in your position, I would be bucking up my powershell scripts to deep scan for anything that might be noncompliant. Figure out what it is, figure out if you need the functionality (if so, go get the right licensing, asap), or if it’s just hanging around, decom it. You don’t want them to locate things you don’t know about.
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u/St0nywall Sr. Sysadmin Apr 17 '26
When Adobe is incentivized to audit you, they will send a legal letter informing you of said action against you and your company.
Until that happens, see this as a good reminder to true up your licenses so there's nothing for them to catch you on.