What is Trojan Horse?

Named for a giant horse that was supposed to be a gift but was filled with the Greek army, a Trojan horse program can be just as deceptive. The story goes that the Greeks gave the Trojans a huge wooden horse as a peace offering. The citizens of Troy accepted the gift, brought the horse inside the city, threw a victory bash, then went to bed. It wasn't until the Greek soldiers had set the city on fire that they realized they'd been had. A Trojan horse that affects computers can contain some nasty surprises as well. It can damage, delete, or destroy important files.

A Trojan horse may actually appear to be a useful application, which is why so many unsuspecting people download them. A Trojan horse might be disguised as a program intended to rid your computer of viruses, yet actually be used to infect your system instead. While the terms "virus" and "Trojan horse" are frequently used interchangeably, they are actually quite different. A virus replicates itself, while a Trojan horse does not.

Once a Trojan horse is activated, it can access files, folders, or your entire system. Commonly, Trojans create a "backdoor" or a "trapdoor," which can be used to send your personal information to another location. To protect your system from a Trojan horse, extensive anti-virus software is a good first step. Choose a program that looks for Trojan horses and worms as well as viruses, and make sure it updates definitions for each frequently. Also, make sure your anti-virus scans email, and gives an alert or automatically deletes any message that contains suspicious code, even if the code is not specific malware that the program has already identified.

The most effective option for protecting against a Trojan horse may be installing a firewall if you do not already have one. A good software firewall is usually the best type for a personal computer. It can be configured to keep intruders out while also keeping your system, or programs within your system, from sending out personal or confidential data.

If you are unsure, test drive a trial version of a firewall or download a free one to check it out. Run it for one day and examine the log file. You'll be shocked by the amount of information that goes in and out of your computer in twenty-four hours. You may even detect a Trojan or other malware that got past your anti-virus, since Trojan horses are frequently difficult to detect.

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This is a nice story i have it a film on a disk and that was a nice trick which allows them to controle the city after more than 20 years

Yes right Bassel , this is why there is something called trojan horse in computer domain which is like a trap where it invades the computer as a normal gift or normal application and then it can create a certain backdoor (port) which allows the hackers or other people to control your computer and destroy its system files .

Hello, i live in the US and here Trojan horses are a very popular form of virus. You can use various software to remove them, now there are many anti-Virus tools such as, Mcafee, or Norton. Trojan horses also bring in other viruses such a worms as well. This is when Anti- Virus software works it finds the trojan, then allows you to delete it. This usually doesn't work, it is kind of like when you get a computer in a box. You open the box and throw the box away, when you throw the box away the computer is still there though. So you do a virus scan often at boot-time so the virus does not activate.

Hope this helps, Labeeb Mesbahuddin, 5th Grade, MICDS, USA

Another trojan horse is back a long time ago a couple of knights built a giant horse hid inside it and wheeled it up too a castle. Some people in the castle didn't know what it was so they brought it inside. At night The knights inside snuck out of the big horse and killed everybody inside the castle.

Yes exactly as you have said Labeeb . In fact the antivirus or the anti spyware or any similar program installed on our computer have a good work in detecting trojans. As you have said we should make scan from time to time but whats is morfe important in that is that whenever the trojan is activated , it will be difficult to remove it and especially that some trojan files have the abilities to stop your antivirus and disable its work.
So in Brief, Our work is trying to catch or detect this trojan before getting inside .
Thanks for your participations Labeeb & jlowrey .

And for some reason if you DONT have anti-virus you can go tohttp://www.microsoft.com/protect/computer/viruses/remove.mspx