What is a Trojan

The word Trojan comes from the classic Trojan Horse in Homer's Iliad. In this story the Greek left behind a large wooden horse outside the city of Troy and sailed off. The citizens brought the wooden horse into town. The horse contained Greek warriors, who then jumped out, killed a bunch of people, and opened the city gates, letting in the rest of the Greek army who had been hiding.

A Trojan generally is not by definition a virus and unlike common belief they do not spread to other programs and other computers like a virus either. However they are one of the leading causes of computer breakings. They can also contain a virus within them.

Trojans are generally programs that pose as a legitimate program on your computer and add a subversive functionality to it. That's when it's said a program is Trojaned. For example a Trojaned login program can be written so it accepts certain passwords for any user's account to give the intruder access to your computer

A lot of Trojans will also turn your machine into a "spam sender" by allowing spammers to relay mail out.

Talk to us about our range of spam and virus systems to reduce the level of threats entering your network.