Ransomware Trends: Rise in Data Encryption and Extortion Tactics

Online criminals are turning away from threatening companies with massive cyberattacks in favour of encrypting a victim's data and demanding money to release it, an antivirus expert claimed on Tuesday.

Eugene Kaspersky, head of antivirus research at Russia's Kaspersky Labs, told the RSA Conference in San Francisco that the use of so-called "ransomware Trojans" is a key trend for 2007.

This malware infects a PC, encrypts some data, and then displays an alert telling the victim to send money to get the decryption key needed to access their data again. Such malware isn't new. Early examples include Cryzip, discovered in March 2006, and GPCode, discovered in May 2005.

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