What is a trojan/worm/virus/logic bomb?
Trojan:
Remember the Trojan Horse? Bad guys hid inside it until they could get into the city to do their evil deed. A trojan computer program is similar. It is a program which does an unauthorized function, hidden inside an authorized program. It does something other than what it claims to do, usually something malicious (although not necessarily!), and it is intended by the author to do whatever it does. If it's not intentional, its called a 'bug' or, in some cases, a feature :)
Virus:
A virus is an independent program which reproduces itself. It may attach to other programs, it may create copies of itself (as in companion viruses). It may damage or corrupt data, change data, or degrade the performance of your system by utilizing resources such as memory or disk space.
Worm:
Made famous by Robert Morris, Jr. , worms are programs which reproduce by copying themselves over and over, system to system, using up resources and sometimes slowing down the systems. They are self contained and use the networks to spread, in much the same way viruses use files to spread.
Logic Bomb:
Code which will trigger a particular form of 'attack' when a designated condition is met. For instance, a logic bomb could delete all files. Unlike a virus, a logic bomb does not make copies of itself.
