The world of computers is full of terminology and references to mythological things. Things of legend and mystery. The main reason for this? Us computer nerds know a good story when we see one and we just like to have fun in naming things. That and it usually holds a type of connection between the mythological terminology and what we use that terminology for today
. One example of this is the Trojan Virus, named after the Trojan horse from the Battle of Troy.
The main reason that it is named a Trojan Virus, Trojan for short, is because of the nature of the virus. Back during the end for the Battle of Troy, as many of you know, the Greeks constructed a huge horse made from wood. It was built as an offering to the Trojans for the death of prince Hector and showing the Greeks essentially retreating and throwing in the towel. Little did they know, it was full of Greeks, as well as Achilles. With this, in short, they were able to take over Troy and claim it as their own.
Essentially what I am pointing out here is the similarities between the Trojan horse from mythical times, and the Trojan Virus. The Trojan horse posed as a great thing for the people. Yet in the end, it cost them their lives. The Trojan Virus is the same way. They pose as a program that is supposed to be very beneficial, such as a registry scanner. Yet in reality, it's malicious software created to destroy your system and help create a backdoor for someone to hack into your system and start finding personal information. A formal definition of a Trojan Virus is, “A non-self-replicating malware that appears to perform a desirable function for the user but instead facilitates unauthorized access to the user's computer system.”
Now many of you just may be asking, “That's all good and honky dory, but how do I know if I have a Trojan or not?!” The answer here, while it may sound way to simple, is very simple. Make sure you have your firewall enabled and if something pops up that information or outside access is trying to come in from an unknown source, you just might have a Trojan.
When you find out you do or something seems out of place, IMMEDIATELY unplug or disconnect from the internet. It is the top way that people will be able to get the your information, so cutting off at the source is always a good idea. Then, run your scans. Go look into your Antivirus Software, Malwarebytes, anything you have, run it.
Once you have scanned a minimum of two times and most, if not all, threats are gone, start looking for some more scans to run. Talk to your friends or some professional techs and see what they run. Follow the links on this site for other scans you can run that are reliable and will get 99.999999% of the threats, which is way better than most. Also, always make sure to restart your computer after a scan to help make sure the threats are gone, erased, destroyed, blown up, or any other word you can think of.
