Malware: Fighting Malicious Code

Summary

This chapter discussed Trojan horses, which are computer programs that appear to be benign, but really include hidden malicious functionality. The term Trojan is often abused, being applied to any type of backdoor. However, the term should only apply if that backdoor is disguised as some benign program. Attackers use Trojan horses to sneak onto systems and hide there, without triggering the suspicion of administrators or users.

One of the simplest Trojan horse strategies involves giving a malicious program the name of a benign program. By including many spaces between the program's name and suffix on a Windows machine, such as “just_text.txt .exe,” an attacker can trick some users into running an executable application, thinking it's ...