| 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. |
| Trojan horse n.
|
Trojan horse application, security
(Or just "trojan") A term coined by MIT-hacker-turned-NSA-spook Dan Edwards for 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]
(2008-06-19)