Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!rutgers!super.upenn.edu!eecae!nancy!umix!tardis!pepe!shane From: shane@pepe.cc.umich.edu (Shane Looker) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Trojan Horse a Myth? Message-ID: <405@tardis.cc.umich.edu> Date: Mon, 7-Dec-87 10:17:04 EST Article-I.D.: tardis.405 Posted: Mon Dec 7 10:17:04 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 12-Dec-87 13:21:08 EST References: <459@gtx.com> Sender: usenet@tardis.cc.umich.edu Reply-To: shane@pepe.cc.umich.edu (Shane Looker) Organization: University of Michigan Computing Center, Ann Arbor Lines: 37 In article <459@gtx.com> al@gtx.UUCP (Al Filipski) writes: :I just read a newspaper article by Clarence Peterson of the Chicago Tribune :in which "Jan Harold Brunvard, University of Utah Professor of folklore :and author of three books about urban legends" dismisses the "Trojan Horse" :computer program as an "Urban Myth". He says "I think there probably have been :some programs like that cooked up, but I can find no evidence that it's :actually been done, and it isn't as though it couldn't be detected and :destroyed." : Obviously, this guy does not live with computers. : :It seems to me that the Professor is being quite naive. We all know :how easy it would be to create a Trojan Horse Program, and even, with a :little more difficulty, make it infect the user's system in subtle :ways. As for the question, "has anyone actually been hurt by one of :these?", I only know third-hand accounts. Can anyone relate a :first-hand account of damage done to his/her system by a malicious :Trojan Horse? There was a posting to Risks last week about a virus which has be put into COMMAND.COM files. This should qualify as a Trojan Horse. There is a file sitting on some BBSs around the country called PACKIT2 (for the Macintosh), which is supposed to be a Trojan horse. I have a friend who wrote a Trojan horse login screen on a TOPS-20 system (or was it a TOPS-10?) several years ago. A friend of his managed to collect a large number of logins and passwords before they caught him. : : ---------------------------------------------------------------------- : | Alan Filipski, GTX Corp, 2501 W. Dunlap, Phoenix, Arizona 85021, USA | : | {ihnp4,cbosgd,decvax,hplabs,seismo}!sun!sunburn!gtx!al (602)870-1696 | : ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Shane Looker | "He's dead Jim, shane@pepe.cc.umich.edu | you grab his tricorder, uunet!umix!pepe.cc.umich.edu!shane | I'll get his wallet." Looker@um.cc.umich.edu