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what is trojan horse virus-Prevention and Removal of Trojan Horse Virus

Nuelson Penuel Monday, March 13, 2023 Technology

 

Summary

In this article, you are going to learn what is Trojan Horse Virus, Types of Trojan Horse Virus, History of Trojan Horse Virus. Preventions of Trojan Horse Virus, Removal of Trojan Horse Virus, How to Recognize a Trojan Virus e.t.c.

What is a Trojan Horse Virus?

A Trojan horse virus is a kind of malware that is designed to pose as a real application in order to fool a computer user into installing it.
what is trojan horse virus-Prevention and Removal of Trojan Horse Virus
Trojan horse viruses are designed like a normal application by the developer in order to gain all necessary system permissions needed. After which, the hidden malicious codes in the application that makes it to execute the developer's or hacker's intention will be executed without interruption by the system security.

History of Trojan Horse Virus

The origin of Trojan Horse Virus can be traced to the year 1975. In 1975, the first program that was considered to be a Trojan was the ANIMAL. This was presented as a simple game, but, behind the scenes, the program copied itself into shared directories and spread via computer networks. However, it was considered a prank as it didn't cause any harm or damage to the systems being installed. As time goes on, Trojan attacks were no more considered a prank. In the year 1989, several floppy disks were infected with Trojan Horse Virus and evil intentions were executed. The first known ransomware was sent to subscribers of World Health Organization and PC Business World magazine conference mailing list. This DOS Trojan would stay inactive for 90 boot cycles, encrypt all filenames on the system in order to render the files useless to the owner, then pop a message asking the user to send $189 to a post office box in Panama for the decryption program. Furthermore, in 1990s, another unpopular Trojan appeared in the form of a simple Whack-A-Mole game. This Trojan have version of NetBus hidden within it. A NetBus is a program that allows an attacker to remotely control a Microsoft Windows computer system over a network. With this remote access, the attacker could do anything to a computer.

How Do Trojans Horse Virus Works?

Trojan horse works differently from a computer virus. While virus finds their way into a computer system via devices like USB flash without the PC user's permission, Trojan horse requires that its .exe (executable) file must be downloaded and install on the computer device before it can carry out its intended routines. Trojan horse viruses spreads via files attached to emails which seems to be legit but are spammed to find their way into the inboxes of many email users. The mail content will then deceive the mail user to download the attachment after which the Trojan horse software will automatically install in the system. Trojan horse also spread via social engineering technique. The social engineering technique is a way that the hacker will use to deceive users into downloading a malicious application that could be hidden in ads or links on websites, pop-up advertisements and banner advertisements e.t.c. A computer device that has fallen victim for Trojan virus and become infected can also spread the Trojan horse infection to other computer systems via remote access to network devices without consent of the device user. When Trojan horse infect a system, the user would not know as the Trojan horse allows the system to continue to perform well and running all tasks smoothly in order to prevent the user from suspecting that the system has been infected by a virus. Trojan horse malware will remain undetected untill the system user visits some websites such as online banking sites or e-commerce site. Once the user visit any of the sites that the cyber criminal is targeting, then the malware will execute the malicious codes unknown to the user and carry out the hacker's specified actions.

Types of Trojan Horse Viruses

The following are the common types of Trojan horses viruses in existence: 1. Instant Messaging (IM) Trojan Horse: As the name suggested, this type of Trojan horse malware targets popular Instant Messaging platforms such as Yahoo Pager, Skype, ICQ e.t.c for stealing of usernames and passwords. 2. Game-Thief Trojan Horse: This type of Trojan targets online gaming platform users to steal their personal information. 3. Remote Access Trojan Horse: This type of Trojan virus allows the developer to have access to the system through remote network in order to steal personal data on spy on the system user. 4. Ransom Trojan Horse: Ransom Trojan horses are designed to target very important data on the business, organization or individual system and deny the system user all access to the infected data therefore asking for ransom from the victim before reverting every damage caused to the system and infected data. 5. Backdoor Trojan Horse: This is used by attacker to gain remote access and take control of the infected system using a backdoor. Through back Trojan horse, the attacker can delete user's files, steal user's data, reboot the system and even upload other malwares. 6. Banker Trojan Horse: The sole aim of this type of Trojan Virus is to steal user's bank account information such as credit card, debit card, online banking login details etc to be able to steal the victim's money. 7. Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Trojan: This type of trojans is specifically designed to target websites. It tries as much as possible to send much traffic to a website in order to overwhelm the server and thereby cause a DoS. 8. Root Kit Trojan Horse: This type of Trojan Virus hides itself on a user’s computer with the intention of preventing malicious programs from being detected, which at then enables it to remain active on infected system for a long time. 9. Mail Finder Trojan Horse: As implies by the name, this Trojan hunts for email addresses that are stored on a computer device and forward them to the cyber criminal. 10. Downloader Trojan Horse: This type of trojan, once it infected a system, its next action is to download and install more programs containing malicious codes like trojans or adware. 11. Spy Trojan Horse: This finds its way into a user’s computer and spy on every activites carried out in the system such as logging keyboard actions, accessing the applications they use, taking screenshots, and tracking login data.

How To Recognize a Trojan Virus

Detecting Trojan virus requires alot of expertise and observations because trojans tries as much as possible to go undetected while they secretly perform their predefined actions. However, with some basic signs, a system user who is very observant should be able to know that his system has been infected. Some of these signs, files suddenly deleting or dissappearing without you performing any action, people telling you about mails that they received from you of which you didn't sent, computer settings suddenly changing, computer performance suddeningly degrading e.t.c.

How to Remove Trojan Horse Virus

Mere eyes won't be able to detect all trojans malware in the system, it is therefore advisable to make use of a good quality anti-malware tool to carryout full scan on the infected system in order to remove all infected files and data. There are many free antivirus and anti-malware programs that can be used for this purpose.

How to Prevent Trojan Horse Virus

Unlike virus that can find its way into your system, Trojans requires that you download the executable (.exe) then install it before it can start to manipulate your system. Therefore avoiding downloads of applications from unknown source can help to prevent Trojan horse infection. Also avoid download attachment from email that you do not know the source and not even expecting. Another precaution is to change the default Windows settings so that the real extensions of applications are always visible so that you may not be tricked into clicking programs or icons that looks innocent. Other best practices include:
  1. Always scan your PC with good and quality antivirus
  2. Keep your operating system up to date
  3. Ensure your applications are up to date so that any security vulnerabilities are patched
  4. Stay away from suspicious websites
  5. Always use passwords that cannot be guessed or compromised
  6. Always stay behind firewall

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