Hacker News Reader

I don't really think it pays off to make such distinction between virus and trojan.

`Trojan` is often used to refer to malware that provides a backdoor into your system, and if someone gets to run code on your machine it isn't your machine anymore.

View on HN

The real value is in evaluating your risk, which includes an analysis of the infection vector. A virus (or worm) can be more risky because it typically exploits a weakness in the system. And some trojans are more risky to some demographics than others, depending on which social engineering techniques they use to trick a user into installing them.

If you are making a risk evaluation based on the generic term someone else uses to describe a threat, you've already lost.

The genie is out of the bottle and there is no putting it back - virus, malware, worm, trojan, etc. are all interchangeable marketing terms now.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com