You dig in your desk for the computer instruction manual and simultaneously wonder if it's too early in the morning to dial the Center for Academic Computing's help-line. Suddenly music blasts from the speakers and your monitor flashes colors in a bizarre strobe-light display. In a sense it is. What you're experiencing is a popular form of computer security attack, known as a trojan horse. In this case, it's a type of trojan horse that enables an intruder to control another person's computer remotely.
Students use it to stay in touch with instructors, parents and friends.
Staff and faculty increasingly rely on it to communicate with one another and maintain contacts with colleagues at other institutions. Yet despite the rewards, a corresponding host of electronic pests continues to expand. From 1997 to 1998, the rate of infection rose by 48 percent and is still climbing. And there are other e-mail pests. E-mail bombs, for instance, overload electronic mail software with hundreds, sometimes thousands of messages making it impossible for the recipient to access or send mail.