Talking Trojan

A talking Trojan is a type of Trojan virus introduced in 2007 that replays an audio message while it deletes the contents of a hard drive or otherwise attacks a system. This is a type of Trojan program, a virus that looks legitimate but attacks the user system when it is run.

The particular type of Trojan referred to as a talking Trojan plays a message telling the user that the system has been infected. The message replays while the Trojan attempts to destroy the system.

History attributes the discovery of the first talking Trojan to a company called Panda Software. The company released some guidelines for how to prevent Trojan infection, including security for USB flash drives and external devices, rules for accessing downloads through the Web or the use of peer-to-peer networks. A talking Trojan also can prevent certain file types from running. It may disable the Windows registry editor and the task manager, which stops the user from doing damage control on the system.