Trojan Horse

Other uses: Trojan Horse (mythical siege machine) A Trojan horse is also a relatively dangerous computer program that does something which the programmer (or packager, or distributor, or advertiser) maliciously intends it to do, but which is unknown to the user. The term is derived from the classical myth of the Trojan Horse.

A Trojan horse differs from a virus in that it is a stand-alone program; the Trojan does not attach to another program. It differs from a worm in that it does not move from one computer to another on its own. A person must transfer it intentionally, such as by email.

For example, an attacker might email a Trojan with an innocuous filename, attached to an email message that claims the program does something useful. When the user executes the attachment, it might modify or delete the content of the attacked machine (by deleting all files or formatting the hard disk). Newer Trojans also access networks, sometimes attacking them by flooding them with messages.

Typically, a Trojan horse is an executable code contained in e-mail attachments, usually in .exe, .scr, .bat, .pif and other pretended formats (but these extensionss might be "masked" behind false or additional extensions and however hide an executable program).

A prototypical Trojan horse is, for instance, a program called "SEXY.EXE" that is posted somewhere with a promise of "hot pix", but when executed erases all the files it can find and prints the message "arf, arf, I got you!".

It is prudent to always scan email attachments with updated antivirus software before opening them. A typical Trojan does not infect other programs and is usually easily deleted.

An early Trojan horse was the 1975 ANIMAL program, a game to identify an animal but which also spread itself to other users on UNIVAC Exec 8 computers[1].

See also: secure computing.

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Trojan Horse

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Other uses: Trojan horse (malicious computer program) The Trojan Horse is part of the myth of the Trojan War.

The Greek siege of Troy had lasted for ten years. The Greeks devised a new ruse - a giant hollow wooden horse. It was built by Epeius and filled with Greek warriors led by Odysseus. The rest of the Greek army appeared to leave and the Trojans accepted the horse as a peace offering. A Greek spy, Sinon, convinced the Trojans the horse was a gift despite the warnings of Laocoon and Cassandra. The Trojans celebrated hugely and when the Greeks emerged from the horse the city was in a drunken stupor. The Greek warriors opened the city gates to allow the rest of the army access and the city was ruthlessly pillaged - all the men were killed and all the women taken into slavery.

There is a small museum founded in 1955 within the territories of ancient city Troy, near the Dardanelles (present-day Turkey). The museum includes the remnants of the city and a symbolic wooden horse built in the garden of the museum to depict the legendary Trojan horse.

Based on this mythological episode, we get the term, Trojan horse, in which a supposed talent is actually a curse, or 'Trojan horse' tactics which are underhand. We also get the Latin phrase "timeo Danaos et dona ferentes" (literally, I fear the Greeks even when they are bringing gifts or figuratively, Beware of Greeks bearing gifts) spoken by Laocoon in Virgil's Aeneid which tells the story of the Trojans during and after the Trojan Horse affair.