This week virus writers took a further step into the underworld when they released a Trojan horse program that holds computer data hostage unless you pay $200. The program infects computers through a weakness in Internet Explorer. It finds files with certain extensions, ‘.doc’ for instance, encrypts them and then demands you pay up or never see your data again…Unfortunately, given that UK police resources are creaking under a two-year backlog of computer crime cases, criminals are probably not feeling too much heat…
