Alva Review-Courier -

An online extortion attack that authorities say swept 150 countries this weekend is part of a growing problem of "ransomware" scams, in which people find themselves locked out of their files and presented with a demand to pay hackers to restore their access.

Hackers bait users to click on infected email links, open infected attachments or take advantage of outdated and vulnerable systems.

Lawrence Abrams, a New York-based blogger who runs BleepingComputer.com, says many organizations don't install security upgrades because they're worried about triggering bugs, or they can't afford the downtim...