Trojan horse (computing)

Beast control program. Beast is a Windows-based backdoor Trojan horse sitting invisibly in infected computer and this program gives full control of that computer.

A Trojan horse, or Trojan, is a standalone malicious file or program that does not attempt to infect other files unlike a computer virus and often masquerades as a legitimate file or program. Trojan horses can make copies of themselves, steal information, or harm their host computer systems. The term is derived from the Trojan Horse story in Greek mythology because the first and many current Trojan horses attempt to appear as helpful programs. Others rely on drive-by downloads in order to reach target computers.

The term is derived from the Trojan Horse story in Greek mythology because Trojan horses employ a form of “social engineering,” presenting themselves as harmless, useful gifts, in order to persuade victims to install them on their computers (just as the Trojans were tricked into taking the Trojan Horse inside their gates).

Purpose and uses

A Trojan may give a hacker remote access to a targeted computer system. Once a Trojan has been installed on a targeted computer system, hackers may be given remote access to the computer allowing them to perform all kinds of operations. Operations that could be performed by a hacker on a targeted computer system may include but are not limited to:

• Use of the machine as part of a botnet (e.g. to perform automated spamming or to distribute Denial-of-service attacks)
• Electronic money theft
• Data theft (e.g. retrieving passwords or credit card information)
• Installation of software, including third-party malware
• Downloading or uploading of files on the user's computer
• Modification or deletion of files
• Keystroke logging
• Watching the user's screen
• Crashing the computer
• Anonymizing internet viewing

Trojan horses in this way may require interaction with a hacker to fulfill their purpose, though the hacker does not have to be the individual responsible for distributing the Trojan horse. It is possible for individual hackers to scan computers on a network using a port scanner in the hope of finding one with a malicious Trojan horse installed, which the hacker can then use to control the target computer.

A recent innovation in Trojan horse code takes advantage of a security flaw in older versions of Internet Explorer and Google Chrome to use the host computer as an anonymizer proxy to effectively hide internet usage. A hacker is able to view internet sites while the tracking cookies, internet history, and any IP logging are maintained on the host computer. The host's computer may or may not show the internet history of the sites viewed using the computer as a proxy. The first generation of anonymizer Trojan horses tended to leave their tracks in the page view histories of the host computer. Newer generations of the Trojan horse tend to "cover" their tracks more efficiently. Several versions of Slavebot have been widely circulated in the US and Europe and are the most widely distributed examples of this type of Trojan horse.

Current use

Due to the popularity of botnets among hackers and the availability of advertising services that permit authors to violate their users' privacy, Trojan horses are becoming more common. According to a survey conducted by BitDefender from January to June 2009, "Trojan-type malware is on the rise, accounting for 83-percent of the global malware detected in the world." This virus has a relationship with worms as it spreads with the help given by worms and travel across the internet with them.

Their main purpose is to make its host system open to access through the internet.

BitDefender also states that approximately 15% of computers are members of a botnet - usually an effect of a Trojan infection.

Popular Trojan horses

• Netbus (by Carl-Fredrik Neikter)
• Subseven (by Mobman)
• Y3K Remote Administration Tool (by Konstantinos & Evangelos Tselentis)
• Back Orifice (Sir Dystic)
• Beast
• Zeus
• The Blackhole exploit kit
• Flashback Trojan (Trojan.BackDoor.Flashback)

See also

• Cyber spying
• Dancing pigs
• Exploit (computer security)
• Industrial espionage
• Malware
• Principle of least privilege
• Privacy-invasive software
• Reverse connection
• Rogue security software
• Secure computing
• Social engineering (security)
• Spam
• Spyware
• Timeline of computer viruses and worms
• Bundestrojaner

References

• Carnegie Mellon University (1999): "CERT Advisory CA-1999-02 Trojan Horses", Retrieved on 2009-06-10.

External links

• Trojan Horses at the Open Directory Project