Virus Terminology Viruses are computer programs that are designed to spread themselves from one file to another on a single computer. A virus might rapidly infect every application file on an individual computer, or slowly infect the documents on that computer, but it does not intentionally try to spread itself from that computer to other computers. In most cases, that's where humans come in. We send e-mail document attachments, trade programs on diskettes, or copy files to file servers. When the next unsuspecting user receives the infected file or disk, they spread the virus to their computer, and so on.
Most people exchange information in time intervals on the order of minutes, hours or days.
Furthermore, information is sent to a relatively small group of people. As the name implies, a Trojan Horse program comes with a hidden surprise intended by the programmer but totally unexpected by the user. Trojan Horses are often designed to cause damage or do something malicious to a system, but are disguised as something useful. Unlike viruses, Trojan Horses don't make copies of themselves. Like viruses, they can cause significant damage to a computer.