What is a TROJAN?
A Trojan horse is full of as much trickery as the mythological Trojan horse
it was named after. The Trojan horse, at first glance will appear to be
useful software but will actually do damage once installed or run on your
computer. Those on the receiving end of a Trojan horse are usually tricked
into opening them because they appear to be receiving legitimate software
or files from a legitimate source. When a Trojan horse is activated on
your computer, the results can vary. Some Trojan horses are designed to be
more annoying than malicious (like changing your desktop, adding silly
active desktop icons) or they can cause serious damage by deleting files
and destroying information on your system. Trojan horses are also known to
create a backdoor on your computer that gives malicious users access to
your system, possibly allowing confidential or personal information to be
compromised. Unlike viruses and worms, Trojan horses do not reproduce by
infecting other files nor do they self-replicate.
Web Reference
May 9, 2005
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