Trojan Horse Virus: What It Is and How to Spot It and Remove It if It Infects Your Site

When it comes to security risks on the Internet, it is worth noting that a Trojan horse virus is one of the most common types of malware that may infect websites. The targeting of the Trojan horse virus is not limited to large companies and famous sites only, but the threat of a Trojan horse virus chases everyone, even small commercial sites, who is at risk of this virus.

We will talk about a Trojan horse virus, we will explain what it is, and we will give some tips for detecting and removing it as well. In addition to mentioning some of the sectors most at risk of cyber attacks and some examples of attacks that have already occurred.

What is a Trojan horse virus?

A Trojan horse is a type of malware that is designed by hackers and hackers to look like an original file. The name is taken from Greek mythology, and the reason is that the behavior of this virus is similar to the behavior of the Greek armies during the storming of the city of Troy, where armies hid inside a giant horse made of wood.

The Trojan horse virus attaches itself to files that are downloaded over the Internet, and as soon as the user (the victim) downloads and opens these files, the virus will hide behind the scenes.

Then the hackers would be able to use the virus to gain access to the user's information without realizing it. It also creates a backdoor for hackers to gain access to the user's system and act as ransomware or ransomware attacks.

 Trojan horse virus can scan and modify data, in addition to blocking and copying data. 

It is also capable of causing interruptions and interruptions in network and system performance. A Trojan horse virus does not spread like other viruses, but rather remains and waits, and in the meantime, it exploits data, in addition to downloading various types of malicious files to the target systems, including websites.

A Trojan horse virus has the ability to infect your site through the files on your site or through the server host that hosts your site.

How to delete and remove a Trojan horse virus

Trojan horse virus is capable of causing a DLL error, losing files, removing firewalls, crashing the system, and you might notice a malfunction. Once you notice a Trojan horse virus attack, it is very important to know how to remove it.

Manually removing a Trojan horse virus will require a lot of time, add to it requires high technical expertise, and this experience is often not available to most small business owners.  

That is why it is important to use a tool dedicated to cleaning your site from malware, a tool such as the Express Malware Removal Tool to help you remove the malicious files from your site. This tool scans your site, removes all dangers and threats, and repairs your site, regardless of the number of processes required, and will not stop until your site is 100% clean and safe as well.

And when you clean your site from malware and trojan horse virus, you can use the website security tool to avoid any future attacks. The site protection service will check your site periodically and developed, in addition to monitoring the reputation of your business and helping you remove your site from the blacklist of sites for Google or other search engines.

Trojan horse virus protect websites

You should also implement a  regular backup service for your site files. It is one of the very effective security precautionary measures, as a backup helps restore your site files in case something happens.

Which sectors are the most targeted by hackers, and why?

When it comes to websites, there are sites from certain domains that are more vulnerable to attacks than others.

 Sites related to legal, financial, government, and education fields are more attractive than other sites.  

Another sector that is very attractive to hackers, especially in recent years, is the health sector. According to reports from IBM, the most significant breakthroughs during 2015 were in the health sector. In addition to another report that highlights the amounts paid for medical care records, as the price of one record is approximately $ 500 on the dark web, and this is because the medical records contain the Social Security number, in addition to the job, address and information about your partner and children as well, and from here you can You see why the health sector is so attractive and interesting.

As with the financial sector, financial institutions have information about your credit cards and other financial information, so the financial sector will always be a popular target. Government, educational and legal websites are also targets since they contain sensitive information and have a large database.

  Regardless of the sector to which the site is linked, it is always better to say that the consequences and consequences of exposure to a security breach may be very dangerous for users, clients, and customers.

When data is stolen, it can be used in a variety of ways:

Sell ​​it on the darknet, where it may be misused by a hacker.

Your customers' identity may be stolen, which will damage your business reputation.

The next goal could be your business or your customers' businesses, websites and devices as well.

Your customers' homes could be a target for theft.

Your customers' financial information may be used to make massive online purchases without them realizing it, and the result is large amounts of debt that you will have to pay.

3 Real Examples of Hacked Sites

Here are 3 sites that have been attacked by malware.

Virus Trojan horse hacks are examples of 

Simplii Financial and Bank of Montreal (BMO) 

In May of 2018, two banks from Canada suffered a security breach, as the sensitive and confidential data of nearly 90,000 customers were affected, and the perpetrators of the attack demanded a sum of $ 1 million in ransom. Bank of Montreal (BMO) issued a statement after the incident, stating that they did not pay the ransom but were doing everything they could to help and protect customers, in addition to providing support and monitoring services for the bank balance.

BMW and Rolls Royce

In 2017, a vulnerability was discovered in BMW and Rolls Royce vehicles with ConnectedDrive. ConnectedDrive allows you to open car doors using a smartphone. After connecting the ConnectedDrive vulnerability to a BMW car theft scam, the task of stealing a car became very easy. Whereas, BMW and Rolls Royce issued a security patch to be used for all cars affected by this trick.

Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center

In 2016, the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center suffered a ransom note, and the hacker demanded $ 17,000 in ransom. As a result of this attack, the network crashed for a week, and then the hospital decided to pay the ransom, after concluding that "the fastest and most effective way to restore order and administrative tasks is to pay the ransom and obtain the decryption key."

Remove malware and protect the website from cyber attacks

Protecting the site and removing malware as soon as any security breach is noticed is one of the critical issues in terms of website security. You should use and follow the advice mentioned in this article to protect your site and learn how to identify common types of attacks such as Trojans.

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