He tried to uninstall the software, but the uninstaller failed. The crack had hooked itself deep into the Windows registry. His computer began to heat up, the fans roaring, acting as a cryptocurrency miner for someone in a distant country.
Then, a system alert popped up: Windows Defender detected a malicious file in /Program Files/Adobe/Adobe Premiere Pro 2022/ . Threat: Trojan.Win32/CryptInject.
First, it was subtle. Premiere crashed, losing about twenty minutes of work. Alex cursed, chalking it up to a buggy auto-save. He restarted, but the software was sluggish.