What is a Trojan Horse Virus?
A Trojan virus is a piece of software designed to look like a useful file or software program but performs a possibly nefarious function once installed on a client computer. The virus takes its name from the “Trojan Horse” from Greek mythology setup outside of the city of Troy. Trojan horse viruses differ from other computer viruses in that they are not designed to spread themselves. Instead Trojan horse malware is either delivered as the payload of another virus or piece of malware or through manual end-user action by downloading infected files or inserting infected drives into a computer. Once a computer is infected with a Trojan virus, the malware can be designed to steal end-user information, perform destructive harm on the target computer, or even download additional computer malware. Trojan horse viruses comprised more than 80% of all computer malware detected in the world over the past year and the number continues to grow.
Types of Trojans
Remote Access Trojans These commonly-used Trojans grant full access of your computer to the attacker. The attacker can rummage through your entire computer and take what he wants.
Password copying Trojans
These Trojans copy all the passwords and email them to the attacker. These are used by attackers when they want to get some information about the user.
Keyloggers
Keyloggers are programs that record keystrokes and send the data to the attacker, who then sifts through the information to retrieve passwords and credit card numbers. Keyloggers can record keystrokes online or offline.
Malicious Trojans
Such Trojans just destroy files from a victim’s system. They are set to automatically delete large volumes of files in seconds. These Trojans are typically set to activate at a particular time and date and can be controlled by the attacker.
Traffic-generating Trojans
Such Trojans just flood the victim’s computer with Internet traffic causing his Internet service to break down.
Proxy Trojans
These Trojans covert the victim’s system into a proxy server that can be used by any hacker around the world. Attackers can use the victim’s computer to attack other computers, access banned sites, send out chain emails, and more.
How to Protect Your Computer from Trojan Horse Virus Infection
The best way to defend against Trojan viruses is to take countermeasure to never get your computer infected. To prevent future infections there are a number of prudent measures that you can take to minimize your risk. First, never open unsolicited email attachments contained in received mail. This is one of the most used methods by hackers to infect targeted computers. Next, do not click links that you did not solicit. An increasingly popular method by hackers is to send malicious links out in spam email vice attachments since more users are becoming educated to the threat that email attachments play. If you have not purchased antivirus software and leave it running, you are long overdue. Additionally, ensuring that you run regular updates for your computer’s operating system, installed programs, and leaving the default firewall turned on is another must in today’s threat environment.