Showing posts with label Trojan Horse. Show all posts
An Introduction To Keyloggers, RATS And Malware
The book takes you right from the beginning from basics to some advanced types of attacks too, In this book I have also reviewed various types of best keyloggers out there so you can find it easier to to choose the best one according to your needs.
How Much Does it cost?
Well here is the best part , unlike my other products such as "A Beginners Guide To Ethical hacking" and "Facebook Hacking Course" i have decided to give this e-book for free, The reason why I am giving this e-book for free is because lots of people cannot afford the costs of my products, so I don't want any one to miss the chance of getting hands on it.My aim is to create awareness among the individual related to Ethical Hacking and Security, This is probably the reason why I am running this blog in the first place. Every day thousands of people fall for these types of attacks and end up loosing their sensitive data such as their usernames and passwords and in the worse case some of them end up loosing their credit card numbers too.
By reading this e-book I am very confident that you will be able to protect your computer from most of these types of attacks.
You can download the book here
BY: Rafay Baloch
Three Most used Backdoor Programs and how to Remove them?
There is a general misconception about security today. Most people would love to believe that their firewalls are completely capable to protect them from anything indecent. The sad part, they could not be more wrong. Hungry Hacker aim to prove it with three separate programs that can compromise the security of computers. You have the opportunity to say “What’s a backdoor?” Yes, these programs were created in 1990, but still pose a real threat today. It is the first two that are still being developed.
Using these programs any noob can remotely access your computer without any Authentication and do whatever he wants. I will tell you some of the features rest of them you need to try it and find out. These Programs :
Work as a key logger.
Send any Information from Victim’s PC to the Hacker’s PC.
Run any program on the Victims PC.
Display any Violating Image on victim’s Screen.
Open the CD Drive
Open any Web page on the Victims Screen.
Disable any Specific Key or whole Keyboard.
Shutdown Victim’s PC.
Start a Song on the Victim’s PC.etc.etc…………..
Back Orifice / Back Orifice 2000
Back Orifice is one of the most common backdoor programs, and one of the most deadly. The name may seem like a joke, but sure, the threat is real. Back Orifice was established in Cult of the Dead Cow group. Back Orifice is an Open Source Program. The main Threat of this software is that by making some changes in the code anybody can make it undetectable to the Anti virus Program running on the Victim’s computer. Apart from the strange title, the program usually gets port 31337, the reference to “Lit” phenomenon is popular among hackers.
Back Orifice uses a client-server model, while the server and client is the victim attacker. What makes Back Orifice so dangerous that it can install and operate silently. There is not required interaction with the user in, meaning you could its on your computer right now, and do not know.
Companies such as Symantec have taken steps to protect computers against programs that they consider dangerous. But even more attacks using Back Orifice 2000. This is due partly to the fact that it is still evolving, as open source. As stated in the documentation the goal is ultimately the presence of the Back Orifice 2000 unknown even to those who installed it.
Back Orifice 2000, developed for Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
Where can I download Back orifice 2000?
Back Orifice 2000 can be downloaded at the following address: http://sourceforge.net/projects/bo2k/
I infected! How do I remove it?
Removing Back Orifice 2000 may require that you change the registry settings. To remove it at 7 simple steps, refer to the diagram below.
How do I delete Back orifice 2000
Click Start> Run, and type “Regedit”(without the quotes)
Follow the path below: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices “
Now looking in the right box: “The umgr32 = ‘c: \ windows \ system \ umgr32.exe”
Right-click on this entry and click Remove. Now restart your computer.
After restarting only open Windows Explorer. Make sure you can see all registered extensions. To do so, select “View Options and configure the appropriate settings.
Go to the WINDOWS \ SYSTEM directory, and find “umgr32.exe” file. Once you find it, delete it.
Exit Windows Explorer and reboot again.
NetBus / Netbus 2.0 Pro
NetBus was established around the same time that the Back Orifice was in the late 1990′s. NetBus was originally designed as a program prank friends and family, of course anything too malicious. However, the program was released in 1998, and is widely used as a backdoor to manage computer.
Like the Back Orifice, NetBus allows attackers to do virtually everything in the computer victim. It also works well under Windows 9x systems, as well as Windows XP. Unlike Back Orifice, the latest version of NetBus regarded shareware is not free. NetBus is also implementing less stealthy operations, as a direct result of criticism and complaints of abusive use.
Where can I buy and download NetBus?
NetBus can be purchased and downloaded at the following address: http://www.netbus.org/
Ok, I am infected. Now what?
Fortunately, the latest version of NetBus is a valid program. It can be removed just like any other program. Previous issuance NetBus is a bit more tricky, however. If you are not lucky enough attacked with the latest version, the withdrawal process and in the Back Orifice.
How do I remove NetBus?
Click Start> Run, and type “Regedit ‘(without the quotes)
Follow the path below: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices “
Now, in the right box, looking as follows: “[Name_of_Server].”Exe Of course, you have to find the actual name of this file EXE-. Usually This” Patch.exe ‘or’ SysEdit.exe “, but may vary.
Reboot and remove all traces of the actual program, which can be left. Additionally, you can set yourself NetBus, and then use its own function disposal.
SubSeven / Sub7
SubSeven or Sub7, has been established for the same purpose was to NetBus pranks. Sub7 actually has more support for pranks, and has more advanced users. Sub7 also widely used by the script kiddies, although that many firewalls and anti-virus software before initialization.
Since Sub7 not supported for several years, the threat is usually very low. Most security programs will not have any problem in ending Sub7 before it has a chance to be started. This shows that the importance to the modernization and security programs is critical, because the money was still there.
Nevertheless, it is widely used by those who have physical access to your firewall, or security programs. If access rights, the tool will work without restrictions.
Where can I buy and download Sub7?
Sub7 not supported more, and hence is not available for download on any legitimate websites. If you were to make a Google search, you would find links to download Sub7. However, this is not the official site, and should be considered dubious and dangerous.
Sounds harmless, How do I remove it?
End of the following processes through the curator: “editserver.exe, subseven.exe”
Delete the following files: “editserver.exe, subseven.exe, tutorial.txt.”
Why these programs is absolutely legitimate?
All the basis behind these programs is that they are designed to help people, not harm. While some like NetBus really were originally created for pranks, they switched routes to avoid legal problems.
These programs claim to be the legitimate remote desktop program, although they certainly easily used for malicious use. These programs really should be used to aid or customer support departments. Why all adolescents is to copy these programs goes beyond us, but leave the content of their networks, while computer is a good idea.
The advent of new technology has made these programs in some respects less effective. However, programs such as Back Orifice 2000, yet still evolving, so do not be surprised to learn that he works in the background, waiting for instructions. Since the best defense is a good offense, be sure to save a sharp eye on what is installed on the network computers. After all, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Tag :
Back Doors,
Trojan Horse
What is a TROJAN HORSE?
Trojan horse well this term has many meanings.
In the context of computer software, a Trojan horse is a malicious program that is disguised as or embedded within legitimate software. The term is derived from the classical myth of the Trojan Horse. They may look useful or interesting (or at the very least harmless) to an unsuspecting user, but are actually harmful when executed.
Often the term is shortened to simply Trojan, even though this turns the adjective into a noun, reversing the myth (Greeks were gaining malicious access, not Trojans).
There are two common types of Trojan horses.
One, is otherwise useful software that has been corrupted by a cracker inserting malicious code that executes while the program is used. Examples include various implementations of weather alerting programs, computer clock setting software, and peer to peer file sharing utilities.
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.
Trojan horse programs cannot operate autonomously, in contrast to some other types of malware, like viruses or worms. 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. As such, if trojans replicate and even distribute themselves, each new victim must run the program/trojan. Therefore their virulence is of a different nature, depending on successful implementation of social engineering concepts rather than flaws in a computer system’s security design or configuration.
Definition
A Trojan horse program has a useful and desired function, or at least it has the appearance of having such. Trojans use false and fake names to trick users into dismissing the processes. These strategies are often collectively termed social engineering. In most cases the program performs other, undesired functions, but not always. The useful, or seemingly useful, functions serve as camouflage for these undesired functions. A trojan is designed to operate with functions unknown to the victim. The kind of undesired functions are not part of the definition of a Trojan Horse; they can be of any kind, but typically they have malicious intent.
In practice, Trojan Horses in the wild often contain spying functions (such as a packet sniffer) or backdoor functions that allow a computer, unknown to the owner, to be remotely controlled from the network, creating a “zombie computer”. The Sony/BMG rootkit Trojan, distributed on millions of music CDs through 2005, did both of these things. Because Trojan horses often have these harmful behaviors, there often arises the misunderstanding that such functions define a Trojan Horse.
In the context of Computer Security, the term ‘Trojan horse’ was first used in a seminal report edited/written by JP Anderson (aka ‘The Anderson Report’ (Computer Security Technology Planning, Technical Report ESD-TR-73-51, USAF Electronic Sysstem Division, Hanscom AFB, Oct, 1972), which credits Daniel J Edwards then of NSA for both the coinage and the concept. One of the earliest known Trojans was a binary Trojan distributed in the binary Multics distribution; it was described by PA Karger and RR Schell in 1974 (Multics Security Evaluation, Technical Report ESD-TR-74-193 vol II, HQ Electronic Systems Division, Hanscom AFB, June 1974).
The basic difference from computer viruses is that a Trojan horse is technically a normal computer program and does not possess the means to spread itself. The earliest known Trojan horses were not designed to spread themselves. They relied on fooling people to allow the program to perform actions that they would otherwise not have voluntarily performed.
Trojans implementing backdoors typically setup a hidden server, from which a hacker with a client can then log on to. They have become polymorphic, process injecting, prevention disabling, easy to use without authorization, and therefore are abusive.
Trojans of recent times also come as computer worm payloads. It is important to note that the defining characteristics of Trojans are that they require some user interaction, and cannot function entirely on their own nor do they self-propagate/replicate.
Examples
Example of a simple Trojan horse
A simple example of a trojan horse would be a program named “waterfalls.scr.exe” claiming to be a free waterfall screensaver which, when run, instead begins erasing all the files on the computer.
Example of a somewhat advanced Trojan horse
On the Microsoft Windows platform, an attacker might attach a Trojan horse with an innocent-looking filename to an email message which entices the recipient into opening the file. The Trojan horse itself would typically be a Windows executable program file, and thus must have an executable filename extension such as .exe, .com, .scr, .bat, or .pif. Since Windows is sometimes configured by default to hide filename extensions from a user, the Trojan horse is an extension that might be “masked” by giving it a name such as ‘Readme.txt.exe’. With file extensions hidden, the user would only see ‘Readme.txt’ and could mistake it for a harmless text file. Icons can also be chosen to imitate the icon associated with a different and benign program, or file type.
When the recipient double-clicks on the attachment, the Trojan horse might superficially do what the user expects it to do (open a text file, for example), so as to keep the victim unaware of its real, concealed, objectives. Meanwhile, it might discreetly modify or delete files, change the configuration of the computer, or even use the computer as a base from which to attack local or other networks – possibly joining many other similarly infected computers as part of a distributed denial-of-service attack. The Sony/BMG rootkit mentioned above both installed vulnerability on victim computers, but also acted as spyware, reporting back to a central server from time to time, when any of the music CDs carrying it were played on a Windows computer system.
Types of Trojan horses
Trojan horses are almost always designed to do various harmful things, but could be harmless. Examples are
erasing or overwriting data on a computer.
encrypting files in a cryptoviral extortion attack.
corrupting files in a subtle way.
upload and download files.
allowing remote access to the victim’s computer. This is called a RAT. (remote administration tool)
spreading other malware, such as viruses. In this case the Trojan horse is called a ‘dropper’ or ‘vector’.
setting up networks of zombie computers in order to launch DDoS attacks or send spam.
spying on the user of a computer and covertly reporting data like browsing habits to other people (see the article on spyware).
make screenshots.
logging keystrokes to steal information such as passwords and credit card numbers (also known as a keylogger).
phish for bank or other account details, which can be used for criminal activities.
installing a backdoor on a computer system.
opening and closing CD-ROM tray
Time bombs and logic bombs
“Time bombs” and “logic bombs” are types of Trojan horses.
“Time bombs” activate on particular dates and/or times. “Logic bombs” activate on certain conditions met by the computer.
Precautions against Trojan horses
Trojan horses can be protected against through end user awareness. Trojan Horse viruses can cause a great deal of damage to a personal computer but even more damaging is what they can do to a business, particularly a small business that usually does not have the same virus protection capabilities as a large business. Since a Trojan Horse virus is hidden it is harder to protect yourself or your company from them but there are things that you can do.
Trojan Horses are most commonly spread through an e-mail, much like other types of common viruses. The only difference being of course is that a Trojan Horse is hidden. The best ways to protect yourself and your company from Trojan Horses are as follows:
1. If you receive e-mail from someone that you do not know or you receive an unknown attachment never open it right away. As an e-mail use you should confirm the source. Some hackers have the ability to steal an address books so if you see e-mail from someone you know that does not necessarily make it safe.
2. When setting up your e-mail client make sure that you have the settings so that attachments do not open automatically. Some e-mail clients come ready with an anti-virus program that scans any attachments before they are opened. If your client does not come with this it would be best to purchase on or download one for free.
3. Make sure your computer has an anti-virus program on it and make sure you update it regularly. If you have an auto-update option included in your anti-virus program you should turn it on, that way if you forget to update your software you can still be protected from threats
4. Operating systems offer patches to protect their users from certain threats and viruses, including Trojan Horses. Software developers like Microsoft offer patches that in a sense “close the hole” that the Trojan horse or other virus would use to get through to your system. If you keep your system updated with these patches your computer is kept much safer.
5. Avoid using peer-2-peer or P2P sharing networks like Kazaa , Limewire, Ares, or Gnutella because those programs are generally unprotected from viruses and Trojan Horse viruses are especially easy to spread through these programs. Some of these programs do offer some virus protection but often they are not strong enough.
Besides these sensible precautions, one can also install anti-trojan software, some of which are offered free.
Methods of Infection
The majority of Trojan horse infections occur because the user was tricked into running an infected program. This is why you’re not supposed to open unexpected attachments on emails — the program is often a cute animation or a sexy picture, but behind the scenes it infects the computer with a Trojan or worm. The infected program doesn’t have to arrive via email, though; it can be sent to you in an Instant Message, downloaded from a Web site or by FTP, or even delivered on a CD or floppy disk. (Physical delivery is uncommon, but if you were the specific target of an attack, it would be a fairly reliable way to infect your computer.) Furthermore, an infected program could come from someone who sits down at your computer and loads it manually.
Websites: You can be infected by visiting a rogue website. Internet Explorer is most often targeted by makers of Trojans and other pests, because it contains numerous bugs, some of which improperly handle data (such as HTML or images) by executing it as a legitimate program. (Attackers who find such vulnerabilities can then specially craft a bit of malformed data so that it contains a valid program to do their bidding.) The more “features” a web browser has (for example ActiveX objects, and some older versions of Flash or Java), the higher your risk of having security holes that can be exploited by a Trojan horse.
Email: If you use Microsoft Outlook, you’re vulnerable to many of the same problems that Internet Explorer has, even if you don’t use IE directly. The same vulnerabilities exist since Outlook allows email to contain HTML and images (and actually uses much of the same code to process these as Internet Explorer). Furthermore, an infected file can be included as an attachment. In some cases, an infected email will infect your system the moment it is opened in Outlook — you don’t even have to run the infected attachment.
For this reason, using Outlook lowers your security substantially.
Open ports: Computers running their own servers (HTTP, FTP, or SMTP, for example), allowing Windows file sharing, or running programs that provide file sharing capabilities such as Instant Messengers (AOL’s AIM, MSN Messenger, etc.) may have vulnerabilities similar to those described above. These programs and services may open a network port giving attackers a means for interacting with these programs from anywhere on the Internet. Vulnerabilities allowing unauthorized remote entry are regularly found in such programs, so they should be avoided or properly secured.
A firewall may be used to limit access to open ports. Firewalls are widely used in practice, and they help to mitigate the problem of remote Trojan insertion via open ports, but they are not a totally impenetrable solution, either.
In the context of computer software, a Trojan horse is a malicious program that is disguised as or embedded within legitimate software. The term is derived from the classical myth of the Trojan Horse. They may look useful or interesting (or at the very least harmless) to an unsuspecting user, but are actually harmful when executed.
Often the term is shortened to simply Trojan, even though this turns the adjective into a noun, reversing the myth (Greeks were gaining malicious access, not Trojans).
There are two common types of Trojan horses.
One, is otherwise useful software that has been corrupted by a cracker inserting malicious code that executes while the program is used. Examples include various implementations of weather alerting programs, computer clock setting software, and peer to peer file sharing utilities.
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.
Trojan horse programs cannot operate autonomously, in contrast to some other types of malware, like viruses or worms. 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. As such, if trojans replicate and even distribute themselves, each new victim must run the program/trojan. Therefore their virulence is of a different nature, depending on successful implementation of social engineering concepts rather than flaws in a computer system’s security design or configuration.
Definition
A Trojan horse program has a useful and desired function, or at least it has the appearance of having such. Trojans use false and fake names to trick users into dismissing the processes. These strategies are often collectively termed social engineering. In most cases the program performs other, undesired functions, but not always. The useful, or seemingly useful, functions serve as camouflage for these undesired functions. A trojan is designed to operate with functions unknown to the victim. The kind of undesired functions are not part of the definition of a Trojan Horse; they can be of any kind, but typically they have malicious intent.
In practice, Trojan Horses in the wild often contain spying functions (such as a packet sniffer) or backdoor functions that allow a computer, unknown to the owner, to be remotely controlled from the network, creating a “zombie computer”. The Sony/BMG rootkit Trojan, distributed on millions of music CDs through 2005, did both of these things. Because Trojan horses often have these harmful behaviors, there often arises the misunderstanding that such functions define a Trojan Horse.
In the context of Computer Security, the term ‘Trojan horse’ was first used in a seminal report edited/written by JP Anderson (aka ‘The Anderson Report’ (Computer Security Technology Planning, Technical Report ESD-TR-73-51, USAF Electronic Sysstem Division, Hanscom AFB, Oct, 1972), which credits Daniel J Edwards then of NSA for both the coinage and the concept. One of the earliest known Trojans was a binary Trojan distributed in the binary Multics distribution; it was described by PA Karger and RR Schell in 1974 (Multics Security Evaluation, Technical Report ESD-TR-74-193 vol II, HQ Electronic Systems Division, Hanscom AFB, June 1974).
The basic difference from computer viruses is that a Trojan horse is technically a normal computer program and does not possess the means to spread itself. The earliest known Trojan horses were not designed to spread themselves. They relied on fooling people to allow the program to perform actions that they would otherwise not have voluntarily performed.
Trojans implementing backdoors typically setup a hidden server, from which a hacker with a client can then log on to. They have become polymorphic, process injecting, prevention disabling, easy to use without authorization, and therefore are abusive.
Trojans of recent times also come as computer worm payloads. It is important to note that the defining characteristics of Trojans are that they require some user interaction, and cannot function entirely on their own nor do they self-propagate/replicate.
Examples
Example of a simple Trojan horse
A simple example of a trojan horse would be a program named “waterfalls.scr.exe” claiming to be a free waterfall screensaver which, when run, instead begins erasing all the files on the computer.
Example of a somewhat advanced Trojan horse
On the Microsoft Windows platform, an attacker might attach a Trojan horse with an innocent-looking filename to an email message which entices the recipient into opening the file. The Trojan horse itself would typically be a Windows executable program file, and thus must have an executable filename extension such as .exe, .com, .scr, .bat, or .pif. Since Windows is sometimes configured by default to hide filename extensions from a user, the Trojan horse is an extension that might be “masked” by giving it a name such as ‘Readme.txt.exe’. With file extensions hidden, the user would only see ‘Readme.txt’ and could mistake it for a harmless text file. Icons can also be chosen to imitate the icon associated with a different and benign program, or file type.
When the recipient double-clicks on the attachment, the Trojan horse might superficially do what the user expects it to do (open a text file, for example), so as to keep the victim unaware of its real, concealed, objectives. Meanwhile, it might discreetly modify or delete files, change the configuration of the computer, or even use the computer as a base from which to attack local or other networks – possibly joining many other similarly infected computers as part of a distributed denial-of-service attack. The Sony/BMG rootkit mentioned above both installed vulnerability on victim computers, but also acted as spyware, reporting back to a central server from time to time, when any of the music CDs carrying it were played on a Windows computer system.
Types of Trojan horses
Trojan horses are almost always designed to do various harmful things, but could be harmless. Examples are
erasing or overwriting data on a computer.
encrypting files in a cryptoviral extortion attack.
corrupting files in a subtle way.
upload and download files.
allowing remote access to the victim’s computer. This is called a RAT. (remote administration tool)
spreading other malware, such as viruses. In this case the Trojan horse is called a ‘dropper’ or ‘vector’.
setting up networks of zombie computers in order to launch DDoS attacks or send spam.
spying on the user of a computer and covertly reporting data like browsing habits to other people (see the article on spyware).
make screenshots.
logging keystrokes to steal information such as passwords and credit card numbers (also known as a keylogger).
phish for bank or other account details, which can be used for criminal activities.
installing a backdoor on a computer system.
opening and closing CD-ROM tray
Time bombs and logic bombs
“Time bombs” and “logic bombs” are types of Trojan horses.
“Time bombs” activate on particular dates and/or times. “Logic bombs” activate on certain conditions met by the computer.
Precautions against Trojan horses
Trojan horses can be protected against through end user awareness. Trojan Horse viruses can cause a great deal of damage to a personal computer but even more damaging is what they can do to a business, particularly a small business that usually does not have the same virus protection capabilities as a large business. Since a Trojan Horse virus is hidden it is harder to protect yourself or your company from them but there are things that you can do.
Trojan Horses are most commonly spread through an e-mail, much like other types of common viruses. The only difference being of course is that a Trojan Horse is hidden. The best ways to protect yourself and your company from Trojan Horses are as follows:
1. If you receive e-mail from someone that you do not know or you receive an unknown attachment never open it right away. As an e-mail use you should confirm the source. Some hackers have the ability to steal an address books so if you see e-mail from someone you know that does not necessarily make it safe.
2. When setting up your e-mail client make sure that you have the settings so that attachments do not open automatically. Some e-mail clients come ready with an anti-virus program that scans any attachments before they are opened. If your client does not come with this it would be best to purchase on or download one for free.
3. Make sure your computer has an anti-virus program on it and make sure you update it regularly. If you have an auto-update option included in your anti-virus program you should turn it on, that way if you forget to update your software you can still be protected from threats
4. Operating systems offer patches to protect their users from certain threats and viruses, including Trojan Horses. Software developers like Microsoft offer patches that in a sense “close the hole” that the Trojan horse or other virus would use to get through to your system. If you keep your system updated with these patches your computer is kept much safer.
5. Avoid using peer-2-peer or P2P sharing networks like Kazaa , Limewire, Ares, or Gnutella because those programs are generally unprotected from viruses and Trojan Horse viruses are especially easy to spread through these programs. Some of these programs do offer some virus protection but often they are not strong enough.
Besides these sensible precautions, one can also install anti-trojan software, some of which are offered free.
Methods of Infection
The majority of Trojan horse infections occur because the user was tricked into running an infected program. This is why you’re not supposed to open unexpected attachments on emails — the program is often a cute animation or a sexy picture, but behind the scenes it infects the computer with a Trojan or worm. The infected program doesn’t have to arrive via email, though; it can be sent to you in an Instant Message, downloaded from a Web site or by FTP, or even delivered on a CD or floppy disk. (Physical delivery is uncommon, but if you were the specific target of an attack, it would be a fairly reliable way to infect your computer.) Furthermore, an infected program could come from someone who sits down at your computer and loads it manually.
Websites: You can be infected by visiting a rogue website. Internet Explorer is most often targeted by makers of Trojans and other pests, because it contains numerous bugs, some of which improperly handle data (such as HTML or images) by executing it as a legitimate program. (Attackers who find such vulnerabilities can then specially craft a bit of malformed data so that it contains a valid program to do their bidding.) The more “features” a web browser has (for example ActiveX objects, and some older versions of Flash or Java), the higher your risk of having security holes that can be exploited by a Trojan horse.
Email: If you use Microsoft Outlook, you’re vulnerable to many of the same problems that Internet Explorer has, even if you don’t use IE directly. The same vulnerabilities exist since Outlook allows email to contain HTML and images (and actually uses much of the same code to process these as Internet Explorer). Furthermore, an infected file can be included as an attachment. In some cases, an infected email will infect your system the moment it is opened in Outlook — you don’t even have to run the infected attachment.
For this reason, using Outlook lowers your security substantially.
Open ports: Computers running their own servers (HTTP, FTP, or SMTP, for example), allowing Windows file sharing, or running programs that provide file sharing capabilities such as Instant Messengers (AOL’s AIM, MSN Messenger, etc.) may have vulnerabilities similar to those described above. These programs and services may open a network port giving attackers a means for interacting with these programs from anywhere on the Internet. Vulnerabilities allowing unauthorized remote entry are regularly found in such programs, so they should be avoided or properly secured.
A firewall may be used to limit access to open ports. Firewalls are widely used in practice, and they help to mitigate the problem of remote Trojan insertion via open ports, but they are not a totally impenetrable solution, either.
Tag :
Trojan Horse
