We all know the story of the War of Troy and of the Trojan Horse. As a way to end the siege of Troy the Greeks pretended to leave the walls of the city and left a huge wooden horse outside the gates, pretending it was an offering. The Trojans wheeled it inside the walls and when they let their guard down the Greeks that were secretly hidden inside the horse came out, opened the city gates, and the Trojans were slaughtered. 

This is how a Trojan horse virus works also. It pretends to be a piece of benign software, sometimes hidden inside a totally normal program or application. Once it’s activated it can star creating chaos on your computer. They’re normally not too invasive, since they can’t replicate themselves like a virus, but they can cause quite a bit of damage. Trojans are mainly designed as a way in for other malicious software – they literally open the door for others to come in.

Getting rid of Trojans is not easy, in fact, you probably won’t be able to do it on your own. Your best bet is to have an active antivirus program on your computer, one that ideally does all these three things: detect a Trojan as it’s being installed, regularly seek out for other Trojans that may have slipped past security and monitor your computer to make sure there’s no illicit activity.

Although the worse times of internet viruses are probably behind us, that doesn’t mean you can go and throw away your anti virus. There’s actually a lot more threats to your computer than there used to be, because as the technology evolves, so do the malware manufacturers, unfortunately. The internet has brought the World together but, unfortunately, it has also brought an increase in the medium in which threats for your computer can spread.

Luckily, all antivirus programs and internet security companies have been keeping up with the ages and are offering comprehensive protection packages that allow you to take full control over your internet.

Long are the days where you would buy one program to do each task. I remember having one firewall, one anti-virus and one anti-spyware suite on my computer, all from different companies. Nowadays, you can simply get a package that does all of these three essential functions, and more. Content blocking, for example, is one of the most important features in any computer, especially if you have children using it. The internet is full of malicious or inappropriate content for children, and you can never be too careful when protecting the kids from the harms of the internet.

If you are on of the millions of people who use a free Hotmail email account, it may be time that you changed your password. Microsoft issued a statement last week stating that hundreds of peoples Hotmail account passwords were posted online.

Microsoft are adamant that the information did not get into the wrong hands as a result of any internal security lapses but rather that the data became available to the wrong people through the implementation of an elaborate phishing scheme.

Microsoft has assured people who may have been affected that it is blocking access to all of the affected accounts and that there are measures in place for users to reclaim the use of their accounts.

Funnily enough, October is ‘Cyber Security Awareness Month’ and here we will tell you how you can best protect your online email account.

-          When you set up your account make sure that you enter an alternative email address. This will enable your account provider to email your alternate address should someone try to change your password etc.

-          Always use a different password for your email account than you use for other sites. If another site gets hacked, the hackers may have your email password.

-          Change your password regularly

-          Never use a password that could be easily guessed such as ‘password’

With these procedures, the chance of your account being compromised are minimised. Remember that antivirus software is a must for anybody who uses the internet. Antivirus software will stop your computer becoming infecting with Trojans that may steal your passwords through the use of sophisticated keyloggers etc.