[<prev] [next>] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]
Message-ID: <42FAA9C9.1030704@science.org>
Date: Thu Aug 11 02:27:54 2005
From: jasonc at science.org (Jason Coombs)
Subject: Re: Help put a stop to incompetent
computerforensics
Chuck Fullerton wrote:
> "A Trojan horse is a program that appears to have some useful or benign
> purpose, but really masks some hidden malicious functionality."
>
> "A Backdoor is a program that allows attackers to bypass normal security
> controls on a system, gaining access on the attacker's own terms."
Here's an example of a completely flawed explanation of the origin of
the term. The definition given claims that the warriors emerged from the
horse and only those warriors overran the city. Obviously that isn't
what happened in the Iliad, the Trojan Horse was used to get further
access for other warriors. Furthermore, "overran the city" means of
course that the Trojan Horse was used for the purpose of gaining control
of the city, regardless of which warriors accomplished the objective.
Most (but not all) of you are suggesting that the only thing that
matters is what the definitions say, and that's not the right way to
look at this issue. A program that does something malicious when used is
not a Trojan unless its malicious purpose fits with the story of the
Trojan Horse as it is understood by non-computer people. This is why we
don't call spyware Trojans any longer -- a distinction has been drawn,
and that distinction has overrun the past usage of the term.
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid14_gci213221,00.html
In computers, a Trojan horse is a program in which malicious or harmful
code is contained inside apparently harmless programming or data in such
a way that it can get control and do its chosen form of damage, such as
ruining the file allocation table on your hard disk. In one celebrated
case, a Trojan horse was a program that was supposed to find and destroy
computer viruses. A Trojan horse may be widely redistributed as part of
a computer virus.
The term comes from Greek mythology about the Trojan War, as told in the
Aeneid by Virgil and mentioned in the Odyssey by Homer. According to
legend, the Greeks presented the citizens of Troy with a large wooden
horse in which they had secretly hidden their warriors. During the
night, the warriors emerged from the wooden horse and overran the city.
Powered by blists - more mailing lists