Underestimated risk: 66% of companies are of the opinion that they do not use open source software/hardware in their products or accompanying services. However, experience has shown that companies are often not even aware that open source solutions are being used. The VDMA therefore advises every company to check this carefully in order to protect itself from possible legal action and damage. This is because products purchased from suppliers may also contain open source components and the supplier does not always have legal permission to use them. The same also applies to software modules developed in-house: software developers also use the Internet for their work and rely on "provided" lines of code, the free use of which is not always clear.