Trojan Viruses take their name from the lore of the Trojan Horse. A Trojan virus is computer malware that is disguised as something useful that encourages you to download or open the file or program which contains the malware. Once opened, the Trojan virus infects your computer. They are capable of downloading or containing “payload” applications that are other computer malware which can do harm. A Trojan Virus is not able to self-replicate like a computer virus, but rather relies on other malware or computer users to spread the infection.
Trojan Virus Payloads
Many Trojan Viruses are designed to allow a hacker to have remote access to your computer. Once you have a Trojan installed on your computer, potential operations that a hacker can perform are:
- Using your machine to help conduct a Denial of Service attack against another website or service.
- Stealing your personal information (banking, credit cards, passwords, etc)
- Installing other computer malware
- Deleting or modifying files on your computer
- Keylogging and screen captures of your activities to send back to the controlling hacker
- Uploading of files to your computer
Methods of Trojan Virus Infection
Trojan viruses normally spread one of two ways: 1 – By being combined with a legitimate looking software program that the user will download and execute on their computer, and 2- disguising themselves as a useful file such as a MP-3 or movie file. They are also known to be sent via email, and sometimes directly injected by hackers through security holes in Web Browsers and Operating Systems.
Trojan Virus Trends
Trojan viruses have increasingly been used as a gateway to other computer malware on the Internet. Hackers have grown savvy to the lack of anti-malware software being used by the general public and have been taking advantage. The majority of Trojan virus infections could be prevented if computer users would simply update their operating system and anti-virus software. Hackers have also been using social networking sites such as Myspace, Facebook, etc to spread Trojan viruses through peer-peer games, message attachments, and DirectX attacks to upload Trojans to unsuspecting computer users.
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