What Does Trojan Horse mean?
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The Greek mythologies gave us wonderful, adventurous stories about the Greek gods, especially the story of the Trojan Horse. The Greeks created a ginormous wooden horse as a present to appease the Trojans when, in fact, it’s actually a secret vessel for Greeks to sneak into the city of Troy. It allowed them to attack and capture Troy.
In the current days, Trojan horse brings cyber threats to many people. It’s a harmful program that disguises as a regular application. The Trojan horse is not a virus; it has no capabilities to replicate itself. Though, the two can do dangerous cyber repercussions on your endpoint or gadgets. In most cases, a cyber-criminal will disguise the Trojan horse as an antivirus that can remove endpoint viruses. In reality, it brings viruses onto the endpoint. Its effects won’t be seen immediately, as it’s unnoticeable.
There’s a 2017 survey conducted that almost 50% of U.S. business owners didn’t know that they were victims of many different cyber threats including Trojan.
How to Know if it’s Trojan Horse
You might think that it’s easy to delete a Trojan Horse. That’s the hard part; it looks like any other ordinary file such as a photo editing software, an antivirus, or even an MP3 song. A Trojan horse can take any form of file because it’s crafted to trick the endpoint users.
Reformatting your endpoint might be the answer on your mind, but you’ll definitely lose all of your important files. Heartbreaking, isn’t it? After collecting all the files you’ve worked hard for, you just have to decide which one is harmful.
The cyber criminals use the method called social engineering to work against you. They’ll use deceitful language to convince you that the Trojan horse is an authentic app or program. When you install the Trojan horse, it’ll definitely work to do malicious activities on your endpoint.
The Trojan Horse Abilities
Trojan horses are so multi-functional and can be unseen for a very long time. Hence, this is very useful and popular choice of malware for many cyber criminals.
These are the common things that a Trojan Horse can do:
Spying
Trojans can work as a Spyware. It’ll wait until you use your online accounts or enter your credit card details. Then, it’ll send your passwords and other information back to the cyber criminal.
Creating backdoor
Trojans also has the ability to change your codes or your security system. With that, even more malware can get through your security tools without getting noticed.
Turn your endpoint into a zombie!
Cyber criminal don’t just steal accounts or information, they also pester other people using DDoS attacks. In order to do that, they’ll implant Trojans to endpoint and use it for their own interest. That will put you in great trouble as cyber crimes are detected through IP addresses of the endpoint.
Send expensive SMS messages
Endpoints aren’t the only targets of Trojans. It can also use smartphones to send expensive SMS messages to premium numbers. A cyber criminal can make money through that.
How to be Safe from Trojan Horse
Don’t worry. Even if it seems that Trojan horses are hard to avoid, there are a couple ways to shun away Trojan horse from your endpoint and gadgets. You never have to deal with the deceiving Trojan horse when you observe these simple steps.
- You always need to use your antivirus as often as possible.
- You have to make sure your antivirus is always updated.
- As much as possible, you have to stay out of malicious websites.
- You must never click attachments and malicious links from unknown emails.
- You need to use difficult passwords for your personal protection.
- Always use firewalls for keeping your personal information safe.
Conclusion
Anyone can be a victim of Trojan. Not only profitable businesses, but also regular endpoint users. They’ll exploit you and leave you defenseless. Never let that happen.
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Related Sources:
Endpoint Detection and Response
Xcitium Antivirus Resources