What is a Trojan Horse?
A Trojan horse program is a malicious program that pretends to be a benign application; a Trojan horse program purposefully does something the user does not expect. Trojans are not viruses since they do not replicate, but Trojan horse programs can be just as destructive. Many people use the term to refer only to non-replicating malicious programs, thus making a distinction between Trojans and viruses.
Just as the mythological Trojan Horse appeared to be a gift, but turned out to contain Greek soldiers who overtook the city of Troy, today’s Trojan Horses are computer programs that appear to be useful software, but instead they compromise your security and cause a lot of damage. A recent Trojan Horse came in the form of an e-mail that included attachments claiming to be Microsoft security updates, but turned out to be viruses that attempted to disable antivirus and firewall software. Trojan Horse (n.) A computer program that appears to be useful but that actually does damage. Trojan Horses spread when people are lured into opening a program because they think it comes from a legitimate source. Trojan Horses can also be included in software that you download for free. Never download software from a source that you don’t trust.
A Trojan horse program is a malicious program that pretends to be a benign application; a Trojan horse program purposefully does something the user does not expect. Trojans are closely related to computer viruses, but they are not viruses since they do not replicate, but Trojan horse programs can be just as destructive. Many people use the term to refer only to non-replicating malicious programs, thus making a distinction between Trojans and viruses.
A Trojan horse is simply a normal computer program. The program is intended to damage only one computer. They do not spread to other files on a computer. A Trojan horse is simply a program with a single destructive payload. This might range from deleting a user’s hard drive to emailing sensitive information from a target computer back to the virus. A Trojan horse may also be used as a “remote control.” This remote control allows the writer of the program to control the infected computer over the Internet.
