Has your PC started acting strangely?
No matter what you do, your Internet speed slows to a crawl.
Your PC dials out to the Internet by itself.
Your CD tray opens by itself?
Those are classic signs of a Trojan infection. The biggest problem with Trojans, though, isn’t what you see, but what you don’t see. Trojans allow other people to silently take control of your computer and all of its resources. For example, they can read, change, or delete your existing files, and even add new files to your computer. They can also use your computer as a launching pad for attacks against others, so it will look as though you’re the attacker.
Trojans typically work by “phoning home” - that is, they connect to the Internet from your PC. Firewalls such as ZoneAlarm provide the best protection against Trojans because they can block these outbound connections. In addition to using a firewall, make sure you scan your system regularly with uptodate anti-virus software.
Spam and Trojans share a special and devious connection. Virus writers who infect PCs with Trojans have been selling the IP addresses of those infected PCs to spammers. The spammers, in turn, use the infected PCs to mail out spam. The person with the Trojan on his PC has, in essence, become a spam robot without even realizing it.
