On this day in history: the greatest security breach in history – the Trojan horse! The strategy has proved so clever and effective, two thousand years later it is still being copied by computer viruses.

The Story of the first Trojan Horse

The Trojan Horse was a sneaky wooden contraption that allowed the Greeks to put an end to the 10-year-old Trojan War. For ten years the Greeks had been trying without success to break through the high walls of the city of Troy. 

A Greek general named Odysseus, came up with a clever idea how to get into the city of Troy. He told his soldiers to retreat leaving behind a giant wooden object made to look like a horse at the city gates. Inside the huge horse were a number of Greek soldiers, including Odysseus.

When the Trojans saw the giant wooden horse and the departing Greek troops, they thought the wooden horse was a parting gift for the gods, so most of them wanted to wheel it into their city.

The wooden horse was move within the city walls as a war trophy. Unfortunate for the unsuspecting Trojans, the Greeks sneaked out of the the wooden horse during the night, attacked the Trojans and conquered the city of Troy.