Trojan Protection

What is a trojan?

A Trojan (or Trojan Horse) is a program which claims to do one thing, but in fact has another secret purpose - for example, the program claims to be a "crack" or a screensaver - but in fact is a tool which takes remote control of your computer on behalf of a hacker or criminal - perhaps recording keystrokes.

Typically, the trojan will arrive by email - often with a deceptive subject such as "We detected Spam coming from your address" and an attachment which "you should run to fix the problem." However, running the unknown attachment is a bad idea - maybe you now have malicious software running on your computer - better hope your antivirus is up to date - or, you're running one of the Online Armor products!

How does Online Armor help protect against trojans?

First of all, Online Armor will check the attachments on email (or any program you try to run) against it's database of good and bad programs. If you are running Online Armor AV+ - the Kaspersky Lab Antivirus engine will be used as well, to check for malicious files. This is the first line of defence - checking the file against the virus database.

Once the file has been scanned, Online Armor makes a determination - either it's safe - in which case Online Armor will allow it to start, or it's Dangerous (detected by Online Armor or Kaspersky Lab Antivirus) - in which case it will be stopped, or it's unknown.

When it detects an Unknown program, Online Armor will pop up and ask you whether or not it should run. At this point you have several options - you can block it (and research the program yourself) - or if you are 100% certain, you can allow it to run.

If you choose to allow the program to run, you can optionally "de-fang" it by checking the "run=safer" box which will cause the program to run with a limited set of rights. Run-Safer is like logging onto the computer as a normal user, not as an administrator - which is how most people log on. Running "Safer" means the program cannot do things like install drivers, or make changes to the windows system.

So, assuming we now run our unknown program - what else can Online Armor do to help?

Trojans want to make sure they automatically start - Online Armor will tell you if a program tries to make itself (or another program autostart)

Trojans often try to disable your security programs (Online Armor will not allow this)

Trojans also try to use the internet (you will be alerted if it tries)

Trojans sometimes try to tamper with other programs (to get past your security)

Some trojans try to write entries in your HOSTS file, install spying objects into your browser, or all of the above

Online Armor alerts you to each of these activities (and more) - so if you run a screensaver program that all of a sudden starts to make things auto run, attacks your security and starts to use the internet - you'll know about it and can use Online Armor to block these actions (or, to clean up if you allowed them in error.)