[2016-03-21] Hackers can hold a town hostage — and they want ransom

Hackers made off with significantly more money in an attack on a Los Angeles hospital around the same time, forcing officials to pay $17,000 in bitcoin to unlock the electronic medical record system.

Last month the FBI issued a flash alert that captured the sophistication of the new strains of ransomware that are afflicting entire networks. “The bad guys burrow into a system often months in advance, map out the network, and then deploy the ransomware at what they believe to be the most critical assets of the organization,” said James Pastore, a former federal prosecutor in New York who worked on a ransomware case involving the Eastern European crime ring Blackshades. In that case, the FBI cooperated with authorities in 18 countries to make 90 arrests in May 2014.

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