Why -not- AutoCAD

[dschenken]

It's hard to measure the real risks, but http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/it-security/autocad-malware-rare-but-malignant/.

Bet it's a great day over at AutoDesk.

[dgschaefer]

I found this curious:

"CAD has been around since the early 1980s, so there are many packages to choose from. Which software did the digital bad guys go after? The most popular of course—AutoCAD.

I have several clients in the manufacturing sector, and they all use AutoCAD."

I've worked with CAD almost 20 years. I started doing gage and fixture design on the board and in AutoCAD then changed companies and learned Pro/E in the mid 90s. I haven't touched AutoCAD since and rarely come across a company doing product design in AutoCAD. My impression is that it's still popular in architectural work, but not in product design or manufacturing. 3D modeling packages like Pre/Creo, Solidworks and Inventor have taken over.

I wonder who he's working with in manufacturing that they are still using AutoCAD?

[Jeroen]

We are... 😉

In many ways, a 'naked' Creo, or any other 3D CAD program, isn't the good solution for our business.

I didn't say AutoCAD is better, but why upgrading to 3D if there isn't any advantage?

But we're evolving. At this moment I'm programming a tool in SmartAssembly to make it possible to draw pressure vessels in Creo... We expect to upgrade to 3D somewhere next year.

[dgschaefer]

Oh, I know some are, but he's saying AutoCAD is still the most popular in manufacturing. I find that hard to believe.

[Inoram]

Yeah, it's hard to say. I know a few companies (manufacturers) that have either Solidworks or Pro (or both), trained all their guys and then don't "enforce" the use of it, so the companies stay on Autocad. In fact the one must have around 20 seats of SW, with about 4-6 guys using it.

As far as viruses it seems like you always have that one or couple people in the office that are the magnets and always have a virus on their machines. That's been my experience anyway. But I would think the much larger threat would be direct hacking into networks. At least towards companies that have the CAD data people are looking for. And IMO knowledgable IT people are few and far between, so it's not like we are moving forward with better security (growth outpacing the support).

[ptc-5163001]

"Oh, I know some are, but he's saying AutoCAD is still the most popular in manufacturing. I find that hard to believe."

Beleve it.

I started CAD work when AutoCAD 2.17 on 5.25" floppy disks and 4 meg of ram with a 20 meg hard disk was the hot thing. thats 30 years past.

Every place I have worked had AutoCAD along side Pro/E, SolidWorks, Inventor, Revit etc.

This is all in a Manufacturing environment.

AutoDesk is the larges software manufacturer in the world as I have been told.

Malware in AutoCAD is probably akin to viruses in Windows, the most available software is the prime target.