Here is why: A RHEL 7.3 ISO from 2016 has hundreds of known, unpatched vulnerabilities (including Spectre, Meltdown, Dirty Pipe, and countless CVEs). But worse, a third-party ISO could be pre-infected with rootkits, backdoors, or cryptominers. You are essentially running binary code from a stranger. The Legal Risk Red Hat's trademarks and binaries are copyrighted. Distributing the ISO without a redistribution agreement violates Red Hat’s terms. While downloading is rarely prosecuted, using a cracked ISO in a commercial environment opens you to massive compliance and audit risks. The Integrity Problem You cannot verify the GPG signature against Red Hat’s official keys. Without that validation, you have zero assurance that the ISO hasn’t been tampered with.
However, "new" is a relative term. The only way to obtain a RHEL 7.3 ISO today is through an active Red Hat subscription—either a paid corporate subscription or the free Developer Subscription for Individuals. red hat enterprise linux 73 iso download new
But what does "new" mean for an operating system released in November 2016? And more importantly— Here is why: A RHEL 7