Simple test if your Mac has a Trojan
If you have seen your Internet performance slowing down or gotten garbled text from your web browser - you may have picked up a Trojan.
Trojans are a form of malware that are not necessarily designed to destroy your computer. Usually the purpose is to get a hold of personal information such as bank account or credit card numbers. The nastier Trojans will actually try to redirect your browser to phishing websites that are designed to look just like your bank's website.
Any Internet enabled device with a web browser can pick up this type of infection due to the built-in Active X controls that must be present in order for the browser to work with web site automation.
The typical point of entry is via the banner ads that can be shown on any web site. These banners automatically install Active X cookies into your browser regardless if you actually clicked on the banner or not.
Normally advertisers use these controls to figure out what you are into so that they can show relevant banners. They use methods such as key-stroke logging to determine what your interests are.
The same exact controls can be used by a Trojan developer to spy on what you are typing on your Mac, PC, or Smartphone.
Unfortunately most web sites have no control over which banners happen to be displayed on their pages. These banner spots are "rented" by large agencies.
The process of taking out a banner ad is essentially anonymous so there is no way to know if a banner is actually legit.
Traditional anti-virus programs were developed during an era when malware was something developed by kids to destroy people's computers for fun. However most well-known malware defenders have not actually evolved to protect users from the bigger threat of identity theft oriented viruses.
It's become a big business. Often the perpetrators are not located within the U.S. and it's an anonymous crime that is hard to track down. Americans suffer individually: one person at a time with a typical hit of $1400 to their bank account.
In my job as a High Speed Internet support tech for Comcast - 60%-90% of my callers show strong Trojan symptoms. One lady told me she had $1000 yanked out her bank account two months after buying a phone over the Internet. Another gentleman said he found airline tickets charged to his Visa - with transactions originating from China.
The reason your computer becomes slow is because the trojan must turn your system into a peer-to-peer router in order to forward data from other infected computers. Information travels over the web in "hops" - and since this traffic is not legitimate it isn't sent over the normal channels.
When my own computer became infected a few months ago - I discovered that I had over 40 open connections to the Internet. This was when I was not surfing, or emailing, or chatting. It only takes two connections to download an intensive web page.
There is a very simple way to test out if your computer has a trojan. All you have to do is hit the "standby" button on your modem for about 5 minutes. As soon this happens the trojan will be forced to drop all of its connections. Once you take the modem out of standby - you will see the performance come back. The speed will gradually diminish over the next 5-10 minutes as the trojan begins re-establishing its own connections.
An excellent program that seems to effectively address this problem is called Avast - and is available for the Mac, PC, Linux, and Smartphones. It succeeds by tightening down the functions on your computer to prevent malware from carrying out their typical operations.
None of the current antivirus programs are actually able to identify and remove these types of infections - due to the fact that they depend on databases of previously discovered viruses. The new malware usually goes unreported because most users are willing to live with system slowness.
The only way to be sure you are clear and free is to run a full hard-disk reformat and system restore.
Trojans are a form of malware that are not necessarily designed to destroy your computer. Usually the purpose is to get a hold of personal information such as bank account or credit card numbers. The nastier Trojans will actually try to redirect your browser to phishing websites that are designed to look just like your bank's website.
Any Internet enabled device with a web browser can pick up this type of infection due to the built-in Active X controls that must be present in order for the browser to work with web site automation.
The typical point of entry is via the banner ads that can be shown on any web site. These banners automatically install Active X cookies into your browser regardless if you actually clicked on the banner or not.
Normally advertisers use these controls to figure out what you are into so that they can show relevant banners. They use methods such as key-stroke logging to determine what your interests are.
The same exact controls can be used by a Trojan developer to spy on what you are typing on your Mac, PC, or Smartphone.
Unfortunately most web sites have no control over which banners happen to be displayed on their pages. These banner spots are "rented" by large agencies.
The process of taking out a banner ad is essentially anonymous so there is no way to know if a banner is actually legit.
Traditional anti-virus programs were developed during an era when malware was something developed by kids to destroy people's computers for fun. However most well-known malware defenders have not actually evolved to protect users from the bigger threat of identity theft oriented viruses.
It's become a big business. Often the perpetrators are not located within the U.S. and it's an anonymous crime that is hard to track down. Americans suffer individually: one person at a time with a typical hit of $1400 to their bank account.
In my job as a High Speed Internet support tech for Comcast - 60%-90% of my callers show strong Trojan symptoms. One lady told me she had $1000 yanked out her bank account two months after buying a phone over the Internet. Another gentleman said he found airline tickets charged to his Visa - with transactions originating from China.
The reason your computer becomes slow is because the trojan must turn your system into a peer-to-peer router in order to forward data from other infected computers. Information travels over the web in "hops" - and since this traffic is not legitimate it isn't sent over the normal channels.
When my own computer became infected a few months ago - I discovered that I had over 40 open connections to the Internet. This was when I was not surfing, or emailing, or chatting. It only takes two connections to download an intensive web page.
There is a very simple way to test out if your computer has a trojan. All you have to do is hit the "standby" button on your modem for about 5 minutes. As soon this happens the trojan will be forced to drop all of its connections. Once you take the modem out of standby - you will see the performance come back. The speed will gradually diminish over the next 5-10 minutes as the trojan begins re-establishing its own connections.
An excellent program that seems to effectively address this problem is called Avast - and is available for the Mac, PC, Linux, and Smartphones. It succeeds by tightening down the functions on your computer to prevent malware from carrying out their typical operations.
None of the current antivirus programs are actually able to identify and remove these types of infections - due to the fact that they depend on databases of previously discovered viruses. The new malware usually goes unreported because most users are willing to live with system slowness.
The only way to be sure you are clear and free is to run a full hard-disk reformat and system restore.
Comments
Do you run OS X on your Mac? Yes-0 points No-1 point
Do you run Linux on your Mac? Yes-1 point No-0 points
Do you run Windows on your Mac? Yes-30,000 points No-0 points
Do you dowload porn video? Yes-100 points No-0 points
Do you download software from BT sites? Yes-100 points No-0 points
Have you ever installed an antivirus program on your OS X installation? Yes-10 points No-0 points
Add up the points and that is the likely number of trojans/viruses/worms you have on your machine.