As a computer user…yes you most certainly should.
If you have any information on your computer that you don’t want criminals to get hold of, or if you access something like internet banking from your system, then you need to do something to prevent becoming a victim of a Trojan attack.
How do you get one?
Most Trojans, like the one making normally fearless Apple Mac users quake in their boots, are delivered to your computer via a malicious website, P2P file transfer or email attachment.
You can be surfing along, minding your own business, when you land on a webpage that automatically starts downloading something to your computer in a way that you don’t notice, and boom, the Trojan is delivered.
What does it do?
Like the famous wooden horse that Brad Pitt hid inside in Troy, the Trojan hides inside the malicious website or email and when you innocently invite it onto your computer it springs out (sometimes a while later when you’ve gone to bed) and starts hunting through your hard drive looking for personal or financial information that it can then send back to its evil creator.
The sneaky thing is that it poses as a legitimate program, file or document, so it can be really tough for you to spot.
There are several different types of Trojan too, though they are all quite similar:
- Key Logging Trojan. Records the keys you type on certain websites i.e. gets your passwords.
- Remote Access Trojan. Gives the scoundrels administrative control and lets them use your system to send out more Trojans; establishing a botnet.
- Back Door Trojan. Leaves your system open so the attacker can get in and out at will.
- Internet Relay Chat Trojan. Attackers can send commands to your computer via an IRC server.
Unlike a ‘Virus’ which aims to mess with and/destroy your files and system, Trojan’s main goal is to creep about and steal information to mess with you personally. Nasty!
What can you do about it?
In the case of the Trojan infecting Macs at the moment, a security patch has been issued that upgrades your computer so that it can either identify and remove the Trojan already on the computer or it can shore up your defenses so that the gap in the security wall is closed up.
If you are just generally afraid of getting one in the future you can invest in one of the many types of anti-virus software out there, or call up IT support and ask them to test and secure your computer. Aside from that you just need to be really careful about going to websites that you don’t trust and downloading email attachments from people you don’t know.
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7 Comments
Trojans are malicious software programs that can cause various issues to a computer. The issues caused by various Trojans differs.Some spies your confidential and personal data and some other create key loggers on your system and will track down the passwords and account numbers that you enter into a site.
Much like outside the walls of Troy, a Trojan House tends not to be threatening unless you invite it in. The vast majority of Trojans still depend on you launching an application manually, so the best thing you can do is simply learn to spot when a .exe file likes a bit iffy. If something doesn’t have an icon, shows up without explanation or you have no idea what it does… don’t launch it.
Hi!
Awesome post. Thanks you have shared about torjan horse in very good way. You not only explain this but also discussed about solutions.
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These kind of post are always inspiring and I prefer to read quality content so I happy to find many good point here in the post, writing is simply great, thank you for the post.
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Don’t just get an anti-virus software. Get an internet security suite instead. It could potentially stop you from getting a trojan horse in the first place by blocking an unsafe website when you attempt to visit.
Though I’m not a tech geek but yes I do use anti-virus protection to secure my PC. I generally avoid to open any unknown site or don’t open any spam box emails. These are few precaution which I take to ensure my PC protection.
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What an informative article! You not only identified and explained the problem, but you offered a solution and preventative measures. I would also like to point out that I love your use of the actor’s name (Brad Pitt) in place of the actual Greek Myth. I could relate to it, a hard thing to achieve in an informational post.