Sophos reports that a British man has been cleared of storing child pornography on his computer after Trojans — malicious bits of code, a kind of virus — were found on his computer. The man had been arrested after 172 indecent pictures of children were found on his hard drive (the report doesn’t say how). A computer forensics consultant identified 11 Trojan horses on the man’s computer, capable of carrying out actions without the user’s knowledge or permission. The acquittal follows the case of another British man who was cleared in April under similar circumstances.
Seems, according to Sophos, that all these images could have been put there by someone remotely. Know anyone who might do that to you? “Some Trojan horses have the ability to take ‘remote control’ of your PC,” explains Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos Anti-Virus. “A remote hacker can view what you are doing, take over your keyboard, steal information and even upload files to your computer if they wish. There can be no excuse for home users surfing the internet not to be running up-to-date anti-virus software and a personal firewall to keep their systems protected.”