Word.ws English Dictionary

protestware

protestware noun: software subverted to serve the ends of a political protest, for example by deleting files or displaying propaganda messages.

Noun

protestware (uncountable)

  1. (neologism) Software subverted to serve the ends of a political protest, for example by deleting files or displaying propaganda messages.
    • Commenting on the malicious code added to the “Vue-cli” application, GitHub user “nm17” said a continued expansion of protestware would erode public trust in open-source software.2022 March 17, Brian Krebs, “Pro-Ukraine ‘Protestware’ Pushes Antiwar Ads, Geo-Targeted Malware”, in Krebs on Security
    • In January, two other popular modules called colors and faker were intentionally sabotaged by their maintainer. Is protestware going to become a common problem?2022 March 19, Lucian Constantin, “Developer sabotages own npm module prompting open-source supply chain security questions”, in CSO Magazine

Examples of protestware in a sentence

  • This form of hijacking, often referred to as protestware is a concerning trend because it can be difficult for an organisation to recognise it before it’s too late.2024 January 22, “DevSecOps risks: How can Indian tech mitigate software hijacking”, in Express Computer, Mumbai:
  • The roots of protestware date back to the early days of computing.2024 September 30, Tanner Finken, Jesse Chen, Sazzadur Rahaman, “An Investigation into Protestware”, in ArXiv:

Origin of protestware

From protest + -ware.

Questions about protestware

What does protestware mean?
Protestware means software subverted to serve the ends of a political protest, for example by deleting files or displaying propaganda messages.
How do you use protestware in a sentence?
This form of hijacking, often referred to as protestware is a concerning trend because it can be difficult for an organisation to recognise it before it’s too late.
What part of speech is protestware?
Protestware is a noun.

Words near protestware in the dictionary

  1. protestive
  2. protestor
  3. protestors
  4. protests
  5. protests too much
  6. protestware
  7. proteus
  8. Proteus effect
  9. Proteus effects
  10. Proteus syndrome
  11. Proteus-like syndrome

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: protestware (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Rho9998-protestware.wav.

Cite this entry: “protestware.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/protestware. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.