Cybercriminals are exploiting the coronavirus crisis and threatening to hold hospitals to ransom despite the life-saving work they are carrying out, Interpol has warned.
It has issued a global alert to health care organisations about the ransomware attacks, often disguised as official advice from government agencies, which are designed to lock administrators out of the critical IT systems they need.
The criminals will demand payment before the hospital staff are allowed back in, like the way the UK's National Health Service was attacked with the WannaCry virus in 2017.
Interpol's Cybercrime Threat Response has detected a "significant increase" in the number of attempted ransomware attacks against key organisations around the world.