a Trojan horse

Trojan horse

1. Something that initially seems innocuous but is ultimately bad or malicious. A reference to the myth in which Ancient Greek soldiers hid inside a giant wooden horse in order to gain access to the city of Troy. That personable new hire turned out to be a Trojan horse—she stole our intellectual property and sold it to the competitor!
2. A computer program that appears to be useful or harmless but secretly installs malicious code or software onto the infected computer. We have malware on our computer because that game you downloaded turned out to be a Trojan horse.
See also: horse, Trojan
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

a Trojan horse

COMMON If you describe someone or something as a Trojan horse, you mean that they seem good or useful, but are really there to help something be harmed or destroyed in the future. Proposals for a golf course are now seen as a Trojan Horse for hotel and conference centres. This small reduction in the basic tax rate was merely a Trojan horse for the far more drastic cutting of the top rate from 70 to 28 per cent. Note: This refers to an ancient Greek story. The city of Troy was under siege from the Greeks. The Greeks built a large hollow wooden horse and left it secretly as a gift for the Trojans, who took it into the city. However, Greek soldiers were hiding inside the horse, and they were able to cause the destruction of the city.
See also: horse, Trojan
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.

a Trojan horse

1 a person or device intended to undermine an enemy or bring about their downfall. 2 a program designed to breach the security of a computer system, especially by ostensibly functioning as part of a legitimate program, in order to erase, corrupt, or remove data.
In Greek mythology, the Trojan horse was a huge hollow wooden statue of a horse in which Greek soldiers concealed themselves in order secretly to enter and capture the city of Troy, an action which brought the ten-year siege of the city to an end.
See also: horse, Trojan
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • Trojan
  • Trojan horse
  • do (someone) a bad turn
  • get wise to (someone or something)
  • speak ill of
  • speak ill of (someone or something)
  • sup with the devil
  • dine with the devil
  • throw enough dirt, and some will stick
  • throw mud enough, and some will stick
References in periodicals archive
"What is so exciting about this treatment is that its mechanism of action is completely novel - it acts like a Trojan horse to sneak into cancer cells and kill them from the inside," lead author Professor Johann de Bono said.
Cancer hope with 'Trojan Horse' drug; SCIENCE
Turnbull "Some people are lucky and have a Trojan horse on their computer which hasn't been accessed by criminals, but others are not so lucky and have bank details stolen, software and data corrupted, and key strokes logged for passwords.
Police warn over cyber threat bugs; 600 computers at risk
The Liberals may be seen as acting like a Trojan horse, an idiom pertaining to a group of persons bent to deceive an organization from the inside.
LP not a 'Trojan horse' seeking Duterte ouster-Lagman
is a Trojan horse in America"--in the old days, kiddies, opponents of the UN used to say it was just a ruse to take over the US.
Horse play
But Alistair Darby, the chief executive of pub chain Mitchells & Butlers, warned: "The risk is that it becomes a Trojan horse for further ways to tax alcohol."
PRICE RULING 'TROJAN HORSE FOR TAX' your money
Like the folks of ancient Troy, we, the citizens of Florida have a Trojan Horse parked outside the gates of our once 'securely protected bastion': Amendment 8."
Florida's Amendment 8 is a Trojan Horse, rabbi warns residents
The first feature can be configurable to detect the propagation of a Trojan horse which tries to spread to other devices analyzing the time between two similar events.
A novel approach to Trojan horse detection in mobile phones messaging and Bluetooth services
will officialy launch today, leaked two weeks ago, with copies first appearing on BitTorrent tracking sites on April 24.<p>Some of the pirated builds include a Trojan horse, numerous users said in message forums and in comments on BitTorrent sites such as Mininova.org.<p>"Just a warning for anyone downloading the new RC builds of windows 7.
Leaked copies of Windows 7 RC contain Trojan
A Trojan horse has been found in the wild masquerading as program for Mac OS X called "'PokerGame".
OSX.Trojan.pokerstealer Trojan horse attempts to take control of Macs
The UK-based Israeli couple at the center of a Trojan horse industrial espionage scandal in Israel has been jailed.
Israel Jails Trojan Horse Spies
Ron Paul of Texas, one of eight House Republicans who voted against the measure, says the legislation is a Trojan horse. "The bill does nothing to address immigration policy, ...
National ID Trojan horse disguised as immigration reform
Is this teller of tales a Trojan Horse or the agent of China's new empire?
Hero
For the first time Mac OS X has been targeted by a Trojan horse, called MP3Concept or MP3Virus.gen, which masquerades as an MP3 file.
The Razz: STEVE LAWSON'S Tech heads: Shaken to the core.
For a Trojan horse to spread, a user must "invite" the program onto his/her computer--for example, by opening an e-mail attachment or downloading and running a file from the Internet.
Protecting your computers from invaders: antivirus-software powerhouse Symantec offers tips for keeping viruses, worms, and Trojan horses at bay
Whether formulating a strategy to protect against a Trojan horse or a Hurricane Isabel, virus protection is just one piece of a company's overall disaster recovery plan.
Tape libraries: a different type of virus protection