The above documentary got me thinking about viruses and trojans. When a trojan or virus enters your computer, is that a specific hacker sitting somewhere in the world specifically hacking your computer?
Or are these trojan and viruses like automated systems which slip into unprotected computers.
If it’s an actual person sending out one of these, that’s super creepy, no ?
Before watching this documentary, I just never thought of trojans as real people, but rather some mass automated message which is sent out in bulk.
Okay, as you can tell, I’m confused, so someone explain in more of a visual form what and who a trajan/ virus is.
These are all tiny programs (set of instructions) that run on your system . Let me give you a very simple example . When you are browsing GS , you'll see different ads showing up on the top and in the bottom . You'll notice that these ads will be from the sites that you have visited on your computer sometime back or might have interest in . Then how come Google ads. knows that you been to those sites ????
Creepy isn't it .
Well in short , Google is reading from your system that which site you been on . They kinda know your browsing trends .
Trojan is a program/software which is installed on to victim’s PC and once installed (it could be a picture file or .exe file made to look like a pic file, like jpg/jpeg, etc.), i reports back to the “owner” with information required to connect to it. It works somewhat like server-client relationship. Server being the end user’s pc (the hacked person) and client being the person who is connecting, using a client piece of the trojan.
When installed, trojan sits in the background, looking pretty and all that and sends every single piece of information back to the client (hacker). Information may include, keyboard strokes :D, screenshots of the windows or whatever is on the screen, passwords, etc. and it also allows the hacker to view webcam (without the user knowing about it).
How to avoid?
I can probably write a paper on this stuff but I won’t get into that. Just becareful, don’t fall into traps. Don’t click on links from unknown users (often in chat rooms), don’t open attachments from unknown users, don’t download pirated software and keygen (key generators). Don’t visit porn sites with gazillion pop ups. Many people fall victim to social engineering techniques so becareful. You know, you have a problem whens someone says “hey can you click on this and see if you can open it” or something. Or “man this picture (me.jpg) is funny, check it out.” As I said, the trojan’s client part (installed on victim’s pc) is often packed into jpg/jpeg files, movie files or exe files and its made to give you an error when you open or open the real thing (like a picture) where the user thinks the picture or movie opened or gave an error but in reality it installed in the background.
If you watched the movie, TROY, at the end they use a “trojan horse” to get into the castle/palace… and that’s how they conquered troy.
Virus on the other hand is different. It is meant to cause problems and steal information but mostly they just cause problems, slow down your pc or destroy files, etc.
Install a good anti virus and anti spyware program… no both are not same, they are different so thats TWO separate programs but sometimes even anti virus programs don’t help.
^I believe you pretty much covered every possible question I would have had on this topic :D
You said they can hack into your webcam, and I wouldn't know. So would the light come on next to the webcam if
someone is trying to hack the cam?
Also, coming back to the basics, the trojan software being installed; are these software's developed individually by hackers? And than they decide to send it out to 100s of computers and which ever one of those computers falls for the trojan is the victim of the hacker. That's how I understand it. You can correct me if I'm wrong.
Gaia you are right . Mubarik . Khilao abb mithai :D
Btw don't be afraid of all the Trojans and viruses . If they'll die all these big antivirus software making companies will die with them . So they are here to stay and its a Billion dollar industry . No one would want to eliminate them .
Just keep your data safe and learn how to reinstall your system if something goes really wrong . Baki Allah maalik ha :D
^I believe you pretty much covered every possible question I would have had on this topic :D
You said they can hack into your webcam, and I wouldn't know. So would the light come on next to the webcam if
someone is trying to hack the cam?
Also, coming back to the basics, the trojan software being installed; are these software's developed individually by hackers? And than they decide to send it out to 100s of computers and which ever one of those computers falls for the trojan is the victim of the hacker. That's how I understand it. You can correct me if I'm wrong.
Yea, camera light would turn on, but I am sure there are other ways to get into webcam without turning the light on, its just software command that lets the camera know to turn the light on. And if the camera is being used then light on or not on doesn't matter, you are multicasting. :D And it allows them to listen to your mic as well, whatever conversation you are having, its turned into a .wav file and uploaded to attackers PC, along with screenshots of whatever is being broadcasted on the webcam every few seconds.
Well, you can't "send" trojan to 100s of computers and expect some to fall for it. As far as I know, only worms spread like that, its "sent" to 100s and 1000s of PCs and 99% fall for it. Install new windows XP or Windows 2000/2003 server and hook it up to the internet, it will IMMEDIATELY get infected with a worm/conficker or one of its variations.
Trojans are mainly sent or planted using social engineering, torrents, files and many other methods.
So you have worms, viruses, trojans and malware/spyware.
Gaia you are right . Mubarik . Khilao abb mithai :D
Btw don't be afraid of all the Trojans and viruses . If they'll die all these big antivirus software making companies will die with them . So they are here to stay and its a Billion dollar industry . No one would want to eliminate them .
Just keep your data safe and learn how to reinstall your system if something goes really wrong . Baki Allah maalik ha :D
I made a virus program in assembly language as semester project. It is pretty wide area and many viruses and trojans are sponsored by AV companies.
So essentially you pros are saying trojans and viruses are very common and we should get antivirus and antispyware softwares to keep our computers protected?
So essentially you pros are saying trojans and viruses are very common and we should get antivirus and antispyware softwares to keep our computers protected?
yeh to koi bohat hi captain obvious wali baat ki aapnay..
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