What is a Trojan Horse Virus?
According to legend, the ancient Greeks could not capture the city of Troy even after years of war. To achieve their goal, they devised a plan: they built a wooden horse large enough to hide 40 soldiers inside and offered it as a gift to the Trojans. Once the Trojans dragged the horse inside the city walls, the soldiers hidden inside emerged and captured the city. Similarly, a Trojan computer virus disguises itself as something else to bypass your defenses and gain access to your system.
How Do Cybercriminals Use Trojans?
It's not easy to bypass cyber security measures. Cybercriminals know that a file named "virus.exe" won't fool anyone. Therefore, they disguise the Trojan as something else. Once the virus infects your device, it can steal your personal data, including passwords and banking information. It can also spy on you, send spam messages, and encrypt your files for ransom. Once a Trojan infects your device, it can download other viruses without your knowledge or use your infected device to carry out attacks as part of a larger network.
How Does a Device Get Infected by a Trojan?
A computer Trojan can be disguised as practically anything that catches your attention, such as an email attachment claiming to be an invoice or essential information, a viral cat video, or an interesting app. Trojans are often injected into a program or file you want to download, and these tricks can be challenging to spot since they are meant to deceive you.
There are many ways for Trojans to infect unsuspecting users' devices, including phishing messages and drive-by downloads, where the Trojan is sneakily downloaded onto your device. Phishing is a social engineering technique where malicious programs are disguised as links and attachments in emails, for instance.
What Are the Different Types of Trojans?
Defending against Trojan horse attacks is already difficult enough, but there are various types of Trojans to watch out for. Trojans can be developed based on cybercriminals' needs, and some of the more sophisticated Trojans can fulfill multiple functions. Trojans and malware, in general, can also be sold by cybercriminals to other criminals based on their needs. Here are a few common types of Trojan malware:
Backdoor Trojan As the name suggests, backdoor Trojans create a backdoor or gateway used to enter your device. Once a backdoor Trojan has established a path into your computer or mobile device, it can use this backdoor to steal your information or infect your device with other types of malware, such as spyware and other Trojans.
Banking Trojan Banking Trojans aim to steal your banking information, such as your bank account login details. For example, a victim of a banking Trojan may receive a malicious link in a phishing attack. After clicking the link, the user is taken to a page that looks like their bank's login page. Instead of logging in to their online bank, the victim unknowingly gives their bank account details to cybercriminals. Banking Trojans can also be used to steal your credit card information.
DDoS Trojan DDoS is short for Distributed Denial of Service, which means that a server is bombarded with requests to increase the server's traffic beyond its limit. The term "distributed" refers to multiple sources that are simultaneously attacking the server. If only a single source is responsible for all traffic, the term DoS is used. A Trojan virus can connect your device to a larger network of devices called a botnet and use it to carry out DDoS attacks.
Downloader Trojan Once a downloader Trojan has infected a device, it can download other harmful malware onto the device. Downloader Trojans are similar to Trojan droppers.
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