We have all experienced the unfortunate virus infection on our computer; it’s not fun and most times it causes down time on the computer, cost to have it fixed, loss of data, and possible identity theft.
A trojan horse or trojan is a program that presents itself as one thing (anti-virus or a game) butactually works in the background to gain unauthorized access to information in a computer.
A trojan virus can steal all sorts of information on your computer such as credit card information, passwords, bank information and then sends the information to the virus creators who can use this information for malicious gains and identity theft.
When you are infected with a trojan infection you will also notice a substantial difference in the speed of your computer and you may even experience several pop-ups related to adult content, casinos, etc.
Don’t click on any of those pop-ups as those will only make the infection harder to remove.
The trojan infection can spread from one PC to another very quickly from e-mails and attachments sent from the infected computer.
It can even corrupt data on a hard drive which will lead to system crashes and deletions of computer files.
Trojan Win32
One of the most dangerous of all trojans is the Trojan.Win32, which is also referred to as the Win32 Trojan. This dangerous infection masquerades on your computer asa legal program, hides from the user and allows remote third parties to take partial or full control of your computer and can record keystrokes.
It can also alter the security settings of your computer to allow more malware to be delivered and installed onto the computer.
How Does it Get Into My Computer?
We have clients ask all the time, “How did my computer get infected?” Most times these infections come from freeware applications that they downloaded, free online games that were downloaded, anti-virus not being updated, firewall settings, computer security settings set too lenient, or from not performing regular updates on the operating system.
The trojan infection wraps itself inside legitimate software such as games, videos, virus and spyware programs, or any commonly downloaded file. In the end, the user ends up with a malicious piece of software that does something entirely different than what it was supposed to do.
Now that you have a general idea of what a trojan is and the most common ways that they get into your computer, what do you do if you are infected?
The first thing that you should do once you notice the infection is to shut down the computer and do not use it for anything.
If you have never dealt with virus removals before then you’ll probably want to work with a professional IT company to do the virus removal, since if not done correctly, the removal process can cause more damage than the trojan.
If you do need to get on the computer to pull some files off, disconnect it from the Internet. That way, no personal information can be sent out from thecomputer such as your credit card or banking information.
Then, you’ll want to work with your IT provider to have a virus clean-up done on the computer. The goal is to get you back online and using your computer safely.
At Technology Experts, we work with clients on virus infections on a day to day basis. Our technicians have several tools and processes to remove virus infections without damaging your system or data.