Hacker Techniques, Tools, and Incident Handling

Chapter 11. Trojans and Backdoors

ONE OF THE OLDEST and most commonly misunderstood forms of malware is the Trojan horse or Trojan. Trojans are pieces of software that are designed to give an attacker covert access to a victim's system. A Trojan is designed to be slipped onto a system quickly and stealthily to start whatever action it is meant to perform. Trojans are small and compact. This makes them one of the hardest types of software to detect on a system.

Trojan horses have a long history in the field of computer security. Since they first came into existence, they have represented one of the chief threats and dangers to users, as they can appear very attractive, enticing them to click on and install software that grants someone else full ...