A Trojan horse method and apparatus to permit email access to secure
enterprise resources within an enterprise's firewall. An email message is
used to permit a user to gain access to computer resources such as
databases maintained within a secure enterprise's firewall. An email
message generated from a palmtop computer or any other computer capable
of sending and receiving email messages is used to pass through the
firewall as a conventional email message would. The email message is
received at a designated computer that recognizes reserved command words
as a part of the email message, preferably as a part of the subject line
thereof. Upon recognizing the reserved command word, the email message is
parsed to determine key components of a command that can be executed on a
desired enterprise computer resource. An appropriate command (e.g., an
SQL query) is then created for execution on the enterprise computer
resource (e.g., a database). A response or acknowledgement is then
returned to the sender as an email message.