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In Greek mythology,
the Trojan horse was a giant wooden horse on a wheeled platform that
appeared to be a gift left by an attacking army who apparently had
finally given up on the siege and gone home. The defending city,
overcome by a sense of pride and celebration, happily wheeled the
structure inside the city walls.
That proved to be a fatal
mistake. The huge, heavy structure was actually hollow and was full
of the best-trained enemy soldiers. Late at night they quietly
exited the horse and laid waste to the city, a task made easier by
the defending soldiers being passed out from the drinking and
partying earlier in the evening.
In modern times, a
Trojan horse is a computer virus
classified under the spyware
category. It is the most dangerous type of spyware to have on your
machine, and should not be taken lightly. Typically they are
a keyboard-logger program. Meaning that they record your keystrokes
and send them back to the criminal who snuck the program on to your
machine, often enabling him to steal the passwords to your financial
accounts.
This type of virus gets it's name from the fact that it is known for getting on
your computer by being "disguised" in something much more innocent
- such as downloading graphics, music files, or what you thought was
another free program entirely. However, that is not the only way to
get them!
These viruses are,
unfortunately, relatively simple pieces of code. They can be
embedded in html email, meaning that if you enable images and links
in emails from strangers you could be susceptible to acquiring one.
They can be set to load onto your computer simply by clicking on the
wrong web page link.
The only defense is to
have both anti-virus and anti-spyware software running on
your machine, full-time. Even though the coding for this type of
spyware is simple, trojans are
often missed by the bigger anti-virus programs (maybe even
because they are such simple codes). If you do any amount of
web-browsing it is only a matter of time before you get one of these
things.
The best-selling anti-spyware
program in the 21st century so far is
No Adware. While free anti-spyware programs are available, a
prudent web surfer will protect themselves with the higher quality
product - as it's just not worth risking the modern nightmare that identity theft
has become. No Adware will safely remove any Trojans that are
already on your computer, and protect you from being victimized by
any that you run into in the future. We highly recommend it.
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