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.