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| 1. | Classical Mythology. a gigantic hollow wooden horse, left by the Greeks upon their pretended abandonment of the siege of Troy. The Trojans took it into Troy and Greek soldiers concealed in the horse opened the gates to the Greek army at night and conquered the city. |
| 2. | a person or thing intended to undermine or destroy from within. |
| 3. | a nonreplicating computer program planted illegally in another program to do damage locally when the software is activated. |
| Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006. |
Trojan Horse
To learn more about Trojan Horse visit Britannica.com
| © 2008 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. |
| Trojan horse
n.
|
| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
| trojan horse | |
noun | |
| 1. | a subversive group that supports the enemy and engages in espionage or sabotage; an enemy in your midst [syn: fifth column] |
| 2. | a program that appears desirable but actually contains something harmful; "the contents of a trojan can be a virus or a worm"; "when he downloaded the free game it turned out to be a trojan horse" [syn: trojan] |
| 3. | a large hollow wooden figure of a horse (filled with Greek soldiers) left by the Greeks outside Troy during the Trojan War |
| WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University. |
Trojan Horse
In classical mythology, a large, hollow horse made of wood used by the Greeks to win the Trojan War. The resourceful Odysseus had come up with the plan for the horse. The Greeks hid soldiers inside it and left it outside the gates of Troy. They anchored their ships just out of sight of Troy and left a man behind to say that the goddess Athena would be pleased if the Trojans brought the horse inside the city and honored it. The Trojans took the bait, against the advice of Cassandra and Laocoon. That night the Greek army returned to Troy. The men inside the horse emerged and opened the city gates for their companions. The Greeks sacked the city, thus winning the war.
Note: The story of the Trojan horse is the source of the saying “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”
[Chapter:] Mythology and Folklore
| The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
Trojan horse application, security
(Coined by MIT-hacker-turned-NSA-spook Dan Edwards) A malicious, security-breaking program that is disguised as something benign, such as a directory lister, archiver, game, or (in one notorious 1990 case on the Mac) a program to find and destroy viruses! A Trojan horse is similar to a back door.
See also RFC 1135, worm, phage, mockingbird.
[The Jargon File]
(1995-03-21)
| The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe |
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