The OneMinute Geek:

Trojans

The Problem:

Internet users love to email silly stuff to each other. Jokes, funny pictures, silly movie clips, and the like are freely traded. No one gives much thought to what might be lurking inside these amusing things. But they should.

Remember the Trojan horse? Welcoming the horse as a symbol of the Greeks’ defeat, the people of Troy wheeled the horse into their gated city. Later, Greek soldiers hidden inside the statue, slipped out, killed the Trojan guards, and opened the city gates for the Greek army.

Ancient history? Yes, but with many modern parallels. In the computing world, “Trojan” refers to software that masquerades as helpful, amusing and benign. Trojans can find their way onto your computer in many ways.

Maybe someone sends you a funny commercial blooper. You click on the link or the attachment, the movie loads, the movie plays…and, in the background, a backdoor opens to your computer.

Trojans can be installed directly on your computer while you are away from your desk. Then, when you return to use your PC, you log onto your network as you normally do, and, Bingo, the Trojan captures your login and password.

Trojans can also be found at internet sites that offer free shareware programs. A Trojan can lurk there without the site administrator's knowledge. Sometimes sites exist just to entice visitors to download software containing hidden Trojans. Watch out particularly for hacker sites offering tools or pornographic sites offering free pictures.

Once a Trojan has slipped into your computer, it can cause a variety of problems. It can play spurious sounds, it can change the look of your screen, it can taunt you with messages. Trojans can also be damaging. They can erase your data, modify files, steal passwords, and enable strangers to hijack your computer. A hijacked computer can be used for anything--downloading child porn, spamming, and other nefarious doings--all in your name.

The Solution:

To protect yourself from Trojans, you need layered security--a firewall, antivirus protection, and a Trojan spotter. In security terms, the firewall is the first line of defense, the antivirus protection is an alarm, and the Trojan horse program is a motion detector.

Here are some guidelines to help keep your computer safe.

• Don’t give anyone else access to your computer. Keep your PC locked, under password protection, and disconnected from the internet when you are not using it.
• Be careful of email attachments, files received from chats, instant messages, and disks from other sources. Never open an email attachment from a person you don't know. Disable email preview screens. Scan disks and zip disks before using them.
• Use commonsense when installing software on your PC. Don’t download software from non-mainstream sites.
• Use a personal firewall to control what programs can access the internet from your computer. This will keep any lurking Trojans off the internet.
• Keep your antivirus software up to date.
• Back up important files often. Use RTF (Rich Text Format) file format instead of the often-targeted word .doc format.
• Use anti-Trojan horse software and update it regularly. A good Trojan horse program will catch a Trojan the instant it begins to execute.
• Check out these popular solutions. Hacker Eliminator (www.hacker-eliminator), BOClean (www.nsclean.com/boclean); The Cleaner (www.moosoft.com)

James Kerr is President/CEO of SuperGeeks, a Hawaii-based computer service and repair company (www.supergeeks.net). Please feel free to send your questions, comments and suggestions to Mr. Kerr. He can be reached at kerr@supergeeks.net and 942-0773.