This is CBS, I on the world, I'm John Bachelor. headline, London. A Russian cyber gang believed to be behind a ransom-ware attack that disrupted London hospitals and led to operations and appointments being cancelled.

This according to the National Health Service.

I welcome Mike Sugton, research analyst at the Foundation for the Defensive democracies,

who with his colleagues at FDD, especially Annie Fixler, have published right now something for everyone to understand

the scale of the threat represented in that London news about a cyber gang from Russia attacking a hospital system.

The document is healthcare cyber security needs a checkup.

Mike, a very good evening to you.

Congratulations to you and Annie Fixler

for being right on the news.

When I first saw your report, I read through it

as a cyber mystery, but now I see it straight up as gang warfare.

First, let us begin with the threat.

What is ransomware? How does it work, Mike?

Good evening to you.

Right, well, thank you so much.

First, I want to say, thank you for having me here. This is a great honor.

So to get into the issue, ransomware is malware that is used sort of like a computer virus

that is used to lock up the target systems so they cannot be used

until a ransom is paid. So you can pay this ransom, say, in Bitcoin or some other form of cryptocurrency.

And then hopefully what the victims would hope

is that if they do pay this, they will get their files back,

they'll get their systems back. But what we found is this is not always the case.

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