Privacy, Security & Virus Information

Could you have a Trojan Horse wandering around your Hard Disc?

You won’t hear the sounds of its hooves if you have a Trojan horse running amok around your hard disc. The evidence of its unwelcome presence will be much more subtle. First of all, your computer will begin to run increasingly slowly; it will take you an age to carry out the simplest of processes. Suddenly files that you don’t recognise will begin to appear in the strangest of places, and your computer's behaviour will become more and more abnormal. Eventually there will be no avoiding or escaping these tell-tale signs. Your computer has been invaded and more than likely by the most unwelcome guest of them all: A Trojan horse.

Many people are embarrassed to admit that they have a Trojan horse on their computer. To a lot of them, the connotations are that you have been surfing web sites which you might have been wise to stay away from. While it is a fact that some of the least reputable web sites are havens for hackers to introduce all kinds of malware to the unsuspecting, the truth is that the vast majority of Trojan horses are squeezed into a computer through the back door. This can mean when the average (and clean-living) computer owner is uploading a scheduled update from one of their leading software suppliers.

So if you begin to suspect that your computer has been invaded, then you need to immediately begin to overcome the problem. Like all medicines, the Trojan horse cure is best taken as swiftly as possible, since the infection could spread very rapidly, not only through your computer, but also to others and worst of all, to your bank account.

If yours is a single computer, then you have it in your power to arrest the spread, and almost immediately. The first step is to disconnect your computer from the internet for the obvious reason of arresting the outward spread of the menace. If you are computer proficient, you could take the chance of repairing the damage yourself. This will almost inevitably mean formatting your hard drives with the consequent loss of any unsaved work in progress, unless you have a back up; which, of course, you should have. If you are not so sure of your capability of carrying out the repair, contact your friendly computer maintenance man, and he or she will be happy to do the repair for you, and drive this modern day evil spirit out with surprisingly little cost and often amazing discretion.

If your computer is linked to a network the story becomes a lot more complicated, as the Trojan horse may have already spread and the damage done. In this case, you should immediately switch off your computer and disconnect all cables, while contacting your IT department without any delay. And although a Trojan will not necessarily do damage to a computer, its presence as a means of extracting information, mostly confidential and sometimes highly valuable, can be expensive in the extreme.

That's why any computer owner should take every step and spare no expense to eradicate the risks that Trojan horses can cause. In relation to the cost of a reliable and trustworthy anti-virus program, the damage reduction is totally negligible and worth considerably more than every penny spent.

 

 
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