Who decides what constitutes a trojan or spyware?

[G0AOZ]

Symantec categorises backdoor.trodal and backdoor.talex as trojan horses, and I assume NAV will stop or disinfect these, for example. It appears that Grisoft class them as spyware, so AVG ignores them!

Is this just a case of there being a "fine line of distinction" between trojans and spyware? What gives here?

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[aquias]

I've noticed this with Symantec. Many pieces of spyware that it detects are classified as "trojans".

As for the distinction. Each company has a different way of classifying and detecting spyware...that is why layered approaches are recommended.