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The United States and Canada on Thursday issued a rare joint cyber alert, warning against a recent surge in extortion attacks that infect computers with viruses known as "ransomware," which encrypt data and demand payments for it to be unlocked. The warning follows reports from several private security firms that they expect the crisis to worsen, because hackers are getting more sophisticated and few businesses have adopted proper security measures to thwart such attacks. (Finkle, 3/31)

A chain of hospitals serving hundreds of thousands of patients in the Washington, D.C. area is struggling to get back to normal, after it was hit with what's known as a "ransomware" attack. Ransomware is a strain of malware that encrypts data on infected machines, then typically asks users to pay ransom in hard-to-trace digital currency to get an electronic key so they can retrieve their data. (Williams, 3/31)