trojan horse

This page is about protecting your computer from trojans. For more detailed information on the trojan horse computer virus please visit www.trojanhorsefacts.com

A computer is a very useful tool to humans. With the use of a computer, you can write reports, presentations, creative designing and surfing the internet. Because it is very useful we do everything to protect it from harm. What are these harms?

They are the virus, the worm and the Trojan horse. All of them are threats to your computer's system. It can cause damage and are capable of removing all important data stored in the hard drive. But, these three threats are actually different from each other. Each of them has different ways of infecting the computer and they differ in the amount of damage that they can make in a computer.

Let's start with virus. A computer virus resides inside a specific program. It can be transferred and can leave severe infections in the computer. This is very similar to human virus. Most of the time, the viruses are found in .exe files or the set up files of a program. The virus can only affect the computer if you run the infected .exe file. Believe it or not, humans are the reason why viruses are transferred. An individual shares the infected .exe file but has no idea about it and the person that will open it will be infected with the virus.

A worm is very much the same as a virus. However, the big difference between a virus and a worm is that the worm can transfer to other computers without human help. By taking advantage of the information or file transport attribute on your computer's system, a worm can simply travel around without you noticing it. The worst thing about a worm is that it has the ability to produce clones of itself.

For example, if your email is infected with a worm, then all the address stored in your address book will be given a copy of the worm and then the addresses stored in your friend's emails will also be given a copy of the worm, and so on and so forth. Because of these abilities, the worm can occupy a lot of space on your computer memory that causes computers to keep on hanging or to stop working.

Now, the difference between a Trojan horse and a virus or a worm is that a trojan doesn't have the ability to create a clone of itself nor make more copies by corrupting other files. However it is very tricky and it is really good in hiding. You may think that you have downloaded a virus-free application from a clean, safe and legitimate source, but inside the application a Trojan horse is hiding and waiting for the right time to come out.

These things can infect your computer in different ways. The most popular are it changes the color or design of your wallpaper or put some absurd icons on your desktop. They also can cause temporary deletion of your files and documents, and others can invade your privacy by getting your credit card information for illegal purposes.

So that's the difference between the three. But no matter how much they differ from each other they are all harmful to your computer. The best solutions are to always back up your files and regularly reformat your computer.