Kaspersky Predicts Ransomware Threats For 2007  'Ransomware
Trojans' would be the key trend of cyber crime in 2007, said
Eugene Kaspersky, head of anti-virus research at Russia's
Kaspersky Labs. In addition to phishing, pharming and other
frauds, the latest threat is ransomware extortion scheme.
Ransomware attackers use malicious code to capture user files,
encrypt them and then demand lump-sum charges for supplying the
decryption key. Such malware have been emerging from the past
like Cryzip, and the GPCode.  These codes didn't create too much
damage. But this year cyber criminals will use ransomware
trojans with greater sophistication, believes Kaspersky. The
last version of GPCode applied a 660-bit encryption key, which a
powerful PC would have taken 30 years to crack. However,
Kaspersky Labs decrypted it quickly, said Kaspersky in a
statement for ZDNet publication on February 7, 2007.  Web-
filtering software vendor, Websense documented one of the
earliest recorded instances of ransomware in May 2005. Whe