Three Britons have been arrested on suspicion of distributing malicious software known as "ransomware".
Earlier this month an Australian medical centre was hit by ransomware which encrypted patient records.
The Sophos piece links to a story from Australia where a trucking company was hit by ransomware.
The warning about the novel strain of ransomware was issued by Germany's Federal Criminal police office (the Bundeskriminalamt or BKA).
So-called ransomware is becoming increasingly popular with cybercriminals and more usually works by preventing a computer starting up or encrypting important documents.
Security firm Symantec said it was seeing more and more strains of ransomware and said it could be "highly profitable" for its creators.
The latest version of the ransomware uses the name of the Internet Crime Complaint Center to frighten victims into sending money to the perpetrators.
FORBES: Hand-To-Hand Combat With The Insidious 'FBI MoneyPak Ransomware Virus'
The ransomware version found by the BKA uses a pop-up window that says the machine has been locked down due to "unauthorised network activity".
Ransomware, which tries to make victims pay an on-the-spot fine, is becoming more prevalent but most strains simply accuse people of pirating movies or music.
Ransomware is malicious software that hackers use to lock you out of your PC and demand money from you before you can use it again.
Security form Sophos has a good video explaining what ransomware is.
Madrid (CNN) -- A gang that used "ransomware" to infect and paralyze millions of computers in 30 nations has been broken up, the European police agency said Wednesday.
Rik Ferguson, director of security research at Trend Micro, said it was the first time he had heard of ransomware displaying images that users were accused of harbouring.
"What we saw in this operation was a new type of cybercrime problem, called ransomware, which involves in particular the cybercriminals hijacking the name and logo of a national police, " said Rob Wainwright, director of Europol.
应用推荐