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American Heritage Dictionary:
Trojan horse |
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Trojan horse |
TechEncyclopedia:
Trojan |
A program that appears legitimate, but performs some illicit activity when it is run. It may be used to locate password information or make the system more vulnerable to future entry or simply destroy programs or data on the hard disk. A Trojan is similar to a virus, except that it does not replicate itself. It stays in the computer doing its damage or allowing somebody from a remote site to take control of the computer. Trojans often sneak in attached to a free game or other utility. For information about various Trojans that are spread on the Internet, visit the Lockdown Corporation at www.lockdowncorp.com. See Trojan dropper, wiretap Trojan, rootkit, RAT, Back Orifice, NetBus, PrettyPark, Talking Trojan and virus.
The Trojan Horse
Trojan comes from Greek mythology, in which the Greeks battled the Trojans (people of Troy). After years of being unable to break into the fortified city, the Greeks built a wooden horse, filled it with soldiers and pretended to sail away. After the Trojans brought the horse into the city, the Greek soldiers crept out at night, opened the gates of Troy to the returning soldiers, and Troy was destroyed.
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The Jargon File's Guide to Hacker Slang:
Trojan horse |
[coined by MIT-hacker-turned-NSA-spook Dan Edwards] A malicious security-breaking program that is disguised as something benign, such as a directory lister, archiver, game, or (in one notorious 1990 case on the Mac) a program to find and destroy viruses! See back door, virus, worm, phage, mockingbird.
Oxford Dictionary of the US Military:
Trojan horse |
1. Greek mythology a hollow wooden statue of a horse in which the Greeks concealed themselves in order to enter Troy.
2. a person or thing intended secretly to undermine or bring about the downfall of an enemy or opponent: the rebels may use this peace accord as a Trojan horse to try and take over.
3. Computing a program designed to breach the security of a computer system while ostensibly performing some innocuous function.
See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.
McGraw-Hill Slang Dictionary:
trojan horse |
Random House Word Menu:
categories related to 'Trojan horse' |
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Trojan horse (computing) |
A Trojan horse, or Trojan, is software that is intended to perform, simultaneously, a desirable (expected) effect and a covert (unexpected) effect. Trojan horses can make copies of themselves, steal information, or harm the computer system.[1] The term is derived from the Trojan Horse story in Greek mythology. Some of the most popular trojan horses are Netbus, Subseven and Y3K RAT.
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Malware is a destructive program that masquerades as a benign application. Unlike viruses, Trojan horses do not replicate themselves, but they can be just as destructive. One of the most insidious types of Trojan horse is a program that claims to get rid of viruses but instead introduces viruses onto the computer.
The term is adapted from its use in Greek mythology, specifically the Battle of Troy. The Greeks hid their army inside a hollowed, wooden horse and gave it to the City of Troy as a gift. Once inside city walls the Greek army exited and conquered Troy. In computer technology the term is used to hide code with one specific purpose, inside other code with a different purpose. A trojan is one of the three major types of malware (trojan horses, viruses and worms).
Trojan may allow a hacker remote access to a target computer system. Once a Trojan has been installed on a target computer system, a hacker may have access to the computer remotely and perform various operations, limited by user privileges on the target computer system and the design of the Trojan.
Operations that could be performed by a hacker on a target computer system include:
Trojan horses in this way require interaction with a hacker to fulfill their purpose, though the hacker need not be the individual responsible for distributing the Trojan horse. It is possible for individual hackers to scan computers on a network using a port scanner in the hope of finding one with a malicious Trojan horse installed, which the hacker can then use to control the target computer.[2]
A recent innovation in Trojan horse code takes advantage of a security flaw in older versions of Internet Explorer and Google Chrome to use the host computer as an anonymizer proxy to effectively hide internet usage. The hacker is able to view internet sites while the tracking cookies, internet history, and any IP logging are maintained on the host computer. The host computer may or may not show the internet history of the sites viewed using the computer as a proxy. The first generation of anonymizer Trojan horses tended to leave their tracks in the page view histories of the host computer. Newer generations of the Trojan horse tend to "cover" their tracks more efficiently. Several versions of Slavebot have been widely circulated in the US and Europe and are the most widely distributed examples of this type of Trojan horse.[2]
Due to the popularity of botnets among hackers and the availability of advertising services that permit authors to violate their users' privacy, Trojan horses are becoming more common. According to a survey conducted by BitDefender from January to June 2009, "Trojan-type malware is on the rise, accounting for 83-percent of the global malware detected in the world". This virus has a relationship with worms as it spreads with the help given by worms and travel across the internet with them. [3]
BitDefender also states that approximately 15% of computers are botnets - usually an effect of a Trojan infection.[4]
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This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
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 | American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| TechEncyclopedia. THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. All other reproduction is strictly prohibited without permission from the publisher. © 1981-2012 The Computer Language Company Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| The Jargon File's Guide to Hacker Slang. The Jargon File. Copyright © 2007. Read more |
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| Oxford Dictionary of the US Military. The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military. Copyright © 2001, 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| McGraw-Hill Slang Dictionary. McGraw-Hill's Essential American Slang Dictionary. Copyright © 2007 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Random House Word Menu. © 2010 Write Brothers Inc. Word Menu is a registered trademark of the Estate of Stephen Glazier. Write Brothers Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia on Answers.com. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Trojan horse (computing). Read more |
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