Digital kidnapping

As the information on our computers is vital to many, some new twist have arisen which moves kidnapping into the cyber age. There are viruses that install themselves on you computer, and then encrypt your data so you can't read it. You are then contacted and told that to get the code to release your valuable information you need to pay a sum of cash. In effect these viruses kidnap your data, its on your computer but unusable. The folks that invented encryption techniques never expected this form of crime.