Online criminals are turning away from threatening companies with massive cyberattacks in favor of encrypting a victim's data and then demanding money to decrypt it, an antivirus expert has claimed. Eugene Kaspersky, head of antivirus research at Russia's Kaspersky Labs, told the RSA Conference Tuesday that the use of so-called <A HREF="http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6157092.html?tag=nl.r23660">ransomware Trojans</A> is a key trend for 2007. This malicious software 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 malicious software isn't new. Early examples include Cryzip, discovered in March 2006, and GPCode, discovered in May 2005.