What is a computer trojan horse

What is a computer Trojan horse? To start off, I'll put it into perspective. Back when the Greeks were invading the Trojans, the greeks battered against their shield and their walls but could not successfully infiltrate the castle and take over. After so many failed attempts they decided to build a wooden horse that the Trojans would allow past their doors without a fight, and after everyone in the castle was drunk and asleep, because the Trojans thought, "Hey, we won!" The greeks popped out of the "Trojan Horse" and they opened the gates, and the slaughter began.

So, if that little bit of history didn't help you figure it out, heres exactly what it is... When it comes to what a computer trojan horse is, it's a malicious virus or malware they infiltrates a computer through subterfuge. In other words, they trick the computer/firewall/anti-virus/anti-spyware, etc. that they are a "friendly" program, or string of code, or anything else that may "ping" the computer and the computer unknowingly lets it in. Sometimes, a Computer Trojan Horse will simply "follow" another computer in through a backdoor or in an open, unwatched port.

Essentially, once a Trojan Horse gets in, they can turn into things like Antivirus 2009, XP antivirus pro and any other slew of malware meant to look like an anti virus program. By the way, once you get these, they usually disable your internet, stop you from using Ctrl + alt + delete, disable your system restore (even though it hides in your system restore) and essentially bug the snot out of you until you decide to purchase their fake anti virus software because you have been infected by 27 viruses, 15 malware, and 200 spyware!!! Oh my! But, don't worry, for the low low low low cost of $49.99, they will happily "remove them" for you! Of course, if you do this, they will take your money onto an offshore account never to be seen again, and the program still won't disappear.

So, for those of you who wanted to know what is a computer trojan horse, now you know. The best thing you can do when it comes to a computer trojan horse is to prevent it. Once they get in, they can be a REAL pain to get out. I have several other posts on how to remove them but they usually are not fun and are very time consuming.

To prevent such a thing, you need a decent anti virus program, even an anti spyware program can help as well. Why? Because like I said before, if a door is opened for a piece of spyware, and a trojan downloader follows it in, the trojan downloader will simply open up other ports in your computer and let more in (just like the greeks did to the trojans).

What else can you do to prevent them? Well, I've said it before in other posts but I'll mention it again: Don't open e-mail from people you don't know, don't click strange links from friends or family that look like this http://www.gejrgegepoijk1123pfergfe.com/. Those are VERY OFTEN a virus or trojan horse attempting to get into your system, possibly keylog you, or phish you out. None of those end well, they usually end up identity theft and the like. Thats all you'd need is to receive an e-mail from uncle fred, click "his" link to view his "cool picture", then it asks you to create a new account using your username and password from your e-mail, so you type that in, and they put a keylogger on your machine and you never receive the cool picture from uncle fred. Not cool. Then, to make it worse, they keylog ALL your usernames, passwords, etc. and have full access to your bank account, social security number, checking, stocks, whatever you have.

So, a word to the wise, it's not so much the question, what is a computer trojan horse? It's what can I do to prevent a computer trojan horse?

TechSavvyT
Answering all your obscure virus, malware, trojan horse, adware, spyware, rootkit, boot sector virus and worm needs.

How to remove a virus from a laptop

If you want to learn how to remove a virus from a laptop, it's the same way as you would a desktop.

Run you antivirus program and there you go. Though sometimes this is not possible, the one you have isn't effective which we'll deal with later.

Often times a virus likes to hide in the restore points in your computer. To stop this from happening, you need to wipe out all the restore points. For those of you that don't know the difference restore points are not the same as a recovery partition.

The recovery partition allows you to format (delete all files) from your C: drive (hard drive) and start over from the beginning aka: the way the manufacturer built your machine. This will delete all your files, and any virus, malware, trojan horse, adware or spyware you have as well. Though for those of you familiar with a boot sector virus or a rootkit, this is often not the case. Instead of the recovery partition, you can always use your recovery disks if you made or purchased them. This post is about how to remove a virus from a laptop, not the "wonders" of recovery partition/disks. I digress.

Your first move should be to try and use a restore point that was automatically saved and see if that works. If you can't boot into windows, you have other options because it is likely for you to be reading this you have another computer. I'll come back to that later as well.

If going back to a previous restore point does not help then you will need to run your antivirus program. Of course, if you have restore points the virus will simply come back when you reboot the machine. Back in the day this was not the case, but the designers of this little miscreants have gotten smarter as they have watched their work get wiped off the internet and our computers one virus definition at a time.

To wipe out all your restore points in windows xp simply click the start menu (bottom left of your screen) and right click on "My computer" or for Vista and windows 7 users, "Computer" then click properties. On the next window that pops up you'll find "System Restore". Simply click the check box that says "Turn Off System Restore" and it will delete all restore points. This can take between 20 seconds to 20 minutes depending on the speed of your machine.

After you are done wiping out your restore points, you can scan your laptop for a virus, malware, trojan horse, adware or spyware. If the program you have is successful, upon rebooting into windows you will find that the virus, malware, trojan horse, adware or spyware is gone and did not "resurrect". To turn restore points back on, do what I described before, except uncheck the box and hit ok.

If you can't boot into windows, or your antivirus program cannot find the virus, malware, trojan horse, adware, spyware, rootkit or boot sector virus the virus may be defending itself in some way. The next best option besides doing a full system recovery is to buy a universal hard drive adapter (around $40 online), pop out the infected hard drive, hook it up to a computer that works, and run your antivirus program from the working machine on the newly attached infected drive. Generally this takes care of the issue because the virus isn't active unless you boot into windows on the affected drive.

Well, there you have it. Answered the question "How to remove a virus from a laptop"

TechSavvyT,
Answering all your obscure virus, malware, trojan horse, adware, spyware, rootkit, boot sector virus and worm needs.