Password Frees Data Held Hostage to Cyber Criminals

Press release: “SophosLabs [has] deciphered the password needed to free data encrypted and held hostage by the authors of the Zippo-A Trojan horse (also known as CryZip).” “Zippo searches for files, such as Word documents, databases and spreadsheets, on innocent user’s computers and moves them into password-encrypted ZIP files. It then creates another file instructing victims to pay $300 dollars to an eGold account to recover their data.”

“Sophos experts who have analyzed and disassembled the Trojan horse have determined that the password, written to look like an ordinary pathname, is: C:Program FilesMicrosoft Visual StudioVC98” “With this password, there’s no need to give in to the criminals’ demands and pay to have data ransomed” says the press release.