Trojan horse

The Trojan horse, according to Greek mythology, was a giant wooden horse that was given to the King of Troy by Greek soldiers as a present, yet it was secretly filled with Greek soldiers, who subsequently leapt out of the horse at night fall and razed Troy to the ground. The Trojan horse can to symbolise something that looks safe but actually holds something dangerous. This myth is suggested to have led to the phrase "beware of Greeks bearing gifts". The term Trojan horse is also used to describe a malicious computer infection, whereby the infection (the "Trojan horse") does nothing for a lengthy period of time, and seems to be innocent, before finally and spectacularly doing a lot of damage, often destroying someone's computer (or at least deleting their hard drives, or lots of information). Trojan horses can include ones that are set to go off on Beethoven's birthday or on the assassination of JFK. Trojan horses are often described as a type of computer virus.