

Just as the Greeks needed the Trojans to bring the horse inside for their plan to work, Trojan horse programs depend on actions by the intended victims. Trojan horse programs cannot operate autonomously, in contrast to some other types of malware, like viruses or worms. The other type is a standalone program that masquerades as something else, like a game or image file, in order to trick the user into some misdirected complicity that is needed to carry out the program's objectives. Examples include various implementations of weather alerting programs, computer clock setting software, and peer to peer file sharing utilities.
#Netbus trojan horse file name cracker#
One, is otherwise useful software that has been corrupted by a cracker inserting malicious code that executes while the program is used. There are two common types of Trojan horses. Often the term is shortened to simply trojan, even though this turns the adjective into a noun, reversing the myth (Greeks, not Trojans, were gaining malicious access). Trojan horses may appear to be useful or interesting programs (or at the very least harmless) to an unsuspecting user, but are actually harmful when executed. The term is derived from the classical myth of the Trojan Horse. In the context of computer software, a Trojan horse is a program that contains or installs a malicious program (sometimes called the payload or 'trojan'). For Odysseus's subterfuge in the Trojan War, see Trojan Horse.

This article is about computer system security.
