|
There is a saying that you can judge a book by
its cover. This statement is true for many people. A story that
has been passed down for thousands of years, which may or may not
have some basis in truth, is that of the Trojan War. The Greek army
was unable to penetrate the walls of the city of Troy so they
developed a plan in which they would put a huge wooden horse outside
as an offering, supposedly of peace. The people of the city of Troy
liked the way the horse looked so they brought it inside. What they
didn't realize, however, is that the horse was actually full of
Greek soldiers and once they were inside they were able to capture
the city. A similar situation is going on with our personal
computers today.
Many people have been infected by what is known
as a Trojan horse virus. These viruses become active once the
program that they are hidden in is either activated or modified in
some way. Typically they come to us in the form of an e-mail
attachment or perhaps riding on the back of something that we have
downloaded off of the Internet. Trojan horse viruses are
notorious for being hidden inside files that look very good to the
eye. Perhaps we get an e-mail with an attachment that is named
so that it entices us into clicking on it, just out of curiosity.
As soon as we click on the attachment it is too late. It has
already been activated and will run its course until we stop it from
running. These types of viruses can really wreak havoc on a
computer system and can also cause some considerable problems for
the user as well.
Perhaps one of the most ruthless thing that it can do is to infect some of your file systems.
By doing this it can stop certain programs from running, and shut
you out of the system altogether. The virus can even wipe out
necessary system files so you can't even start your computer.
Another thing that a Trojan horse can do is to open up a backdoor
that will allow other viruses and malicious software programs to
invade your computer. These can do any number of things but they
mainly infect you with pop-ups and unwanted ads and slow your
computer down to a crawl.
Other viruses will follow you around while you
are working on your computer, taking screenshots and recording
usernames and passwords. They will then upload this
information to a database or send it to the hacker so that they can
use your logins. The virus may also steal your credit card and
banking account information if you access those online. So the
next time somebody sends you an e-mail attachment and you do not
trust it think twice before you open it. Often it is not
important enough to risk an infection that could wipe out your
computer.
|
