Federal court order helps businesses fight ransomware

(CNN) — Tech Company Microsoft and multiple hospital groups are now using a federal court order to help cut off cyber criminals’ access to a hacking tool around the world. This is one of the biggest moves yet by tech firms and hospitals to combat ransomware attacks that have crippled U.S. health care providers for years.

The federal court order allows Microsoft to cut off the communication between mainly Russian speaking hackers and the bootleg version of the software used to get into a victim’s network.

Some of the attacks include forcing ambulances to be diverted or chemotherapy appointments to be canceled. Microsoft says the order won’t eliminate the malicious use of the software, but will use the information seized from the hackers to go after other infrastructure they use.