Spring Cleaning Your PC by Jason Levine

Even more insidious than spyware are Trojans. Spyware will report back your surfing habits, but Trojan horse programs will take over your entire PC. Trojans get installed without your approval via security holes in your PC (most commonly via IRC or shared folders being left open). They will then record keystrokes (bank account info, passwords, etc), and/or use your system as a "zombie" under a hacker's control to execute a DDOS attack on another computer. Either way, it's something you don't want on your system.

Your normal anti-virus scanner might be able to pick up some Trojans, but to really deep clean your PC of them, I'd recommend an anti-Trojan scanner. Unfortunately, there are no really good freeware Trojan scanners. However, the scanner I would recommend, Tauscan can be downloaded for a thirty day free trial. After the thirty days, if you decide to continue using Tauscan, you can register it for $29.95.

Before you use Tauscan, though, make sure you update the DAT files. These files tell Tauscan how to recognize a Trojan. To update the DAT files, follow the instructions at http://www.agnitum.com/products/tauscan/dat.html.

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Using Tauscan is as easy as selecting the drives you want to scan and click Scan. If Tauscan finds a Trojan, it will prompt you with removal instructions. Once it's done scanning, you can be confident that your system is cleaned of Trojans.