Trojan.Agent.ZT

Trojan.Agent.ZT is a Trojan infection associated with PUPs and adware. Trojan.Agent.ZT may be inserted into websites by ill-minded persons in order to force these websites to display pop-up windows and suspicious advertisements on its visitors' Web browsers. Trojan.Agent.ZT made the news recently when its creators managed to hack the website of a city in Florida using this Trojan infection. Trojan.Agent.ZT allows cybercrooks and shady marketers to profit at the expense of computer users by compromising legitimate websites. Because of this, Trojan.Agent.ZT is considered a serious threat to the computers' security. If you consider that your computer has been exposed to Trojan.Agent.ZT, PC security analysts strongly advise the use of a recommended and updated security product. If you manage a website and you wish to prevent it from becoming compromised with threats like Trojan.Agent.ZT, make sure to keep your software fully updated and to use strong passwords and other security measures to prevent it from being infiltrated.

Trojan.Agent.ZT was Used in Attacks Against a Florida Government Website

The official website for a city in Florida, Arcadia, was compromised. Computer users visiting this website were greeted by a pop-up window advertising a fake video player. The pop-up messages associated with Trojan.Agent.ZT in this case tried to convince computer users to download and install the VIO Player and the Optimum Installer download manager, both known Potentially Unwanted Programs. Using Trojan.Agent.ZT, computer users may be convinced to install Web browser toolbars that cause a variety of problems on compromised computers.

Infections like this one are quite threatening because PC users are more likely to trust a government website than any other kind of online content. Fortunately, Trojan.Agent.ZT was taken down almost immediately, minimizing the number of computer users that were exposed. It is important to understand that legitimate websites may be compromised by a threat like Trojan.Agent.ZT. Because of this, beware if a website starts displaying pop-up messages that seem out of character or that weren't there before, especially if they are messages advertising shady locations or urging you to download and install software.