What Is A Trojan Horse?

Date First Published: 2nd May 2023

Topic: Cybersecurity

Subtopic: Threats To Systems, Data & Information

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty Level: 4/10

Learn more about what a Trojan horse is in this article.

A Trojan horse, often shortened to a Trojan, is a type of malware that disguises itself as a safe and legitimate program when it actually performs malicious tasks in order to trick users into opening and running it. Trojan horses are designed to mislead users of their true intent and are one of the most common ways malware spreads from one computer to another. They will often sneakily install on your computer without you knowing, so it will not be immediately obvious that a Trojan horse was installed.

Prevention

A Trojan horse is definitely something that you don't want your computer to catch. Fortunately, there are lots of ways that you can prevent your computer from becoming infected with a Trojan horse. Not downloading and running unknown files, not opening unexpected email attachments, and not using unknown flash drives can help prevent your computer from becoming infected.

Once a computer is infected with a Trojan horse, it can cause all sorts of issues, like deleting files, stealing sensitive information, gaining remote access to your computer, encrypting files to make them inaccessible, and more. Therefore, it is much better to prevent a Trojan horse infection than to try and remove it. Antivirus software is good at detecting and removing Trojan horse infections as long as it is up to date. Always make sure that your antivirus software is up to date so that it can detect the latest threats. It is also recommended to run a full scan on a regular basis as it may detect hidden Trojan horses.

Is A Trojan Horse A Virus Or Malware?

A Trojan horse is a type of malware. It is not a virus because a virus is self-replicating, meaning that it copies itself to spread from one computer to another. A Trojan horse is not self-replicating since it require users to manually download and install it to become infected. Trojan horses don't spread by themselves. Therefore, it is incorrect to say 'Trojan horse virus' or 'Trojan virus'.

Where Did The Term "Trojan horse" Come From?

The term Trojan horse came from Greek mythology. The Greeks built a large wooden horse that the people of Troy would receive into their city as a gift. The Trojans accepted the gift and brought it inside the city walls. Later that night, soldiers who had been hiding inside the horse emerged, opened the gates to let their fellow soldiers in and invaded the city of Troy from within.

Like the ancient wooden house, a Trojan horse pretends to be something harmless, like a useful game, toolbar, antivirus, or system utility. However, that just hides its true, malicious intent. When opened, it will actually turn out to be something malicious that harms your computer. Trojans may also extract several files from their own code to install a malicious program package.

Should The Term "Trojan" Be Capitalised?

The term "Trojan" should be capitalised as it is a proper noun refers to the legendary Trojan horse of the ancient city of Troy. However, the word 'horse' doesn't need to be capitalised.

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