The White House has united dozens of nations and representatives from big tech companies for a two-day summit aimed at figuring out how to tackle the global ransomware problem. 

"When you look at government networks, as we know -Costa Rica; Montenegro; Bank of Zambia; the city of Palermo, Italy -this is really a global problem. So, we're seeing the pace and the sophistication of the ransomware attacks increasing faster than our resilience and disruption efforts," said a senior administration official, noting there has been a wide range of attacks on the healthcare sector from the Irish National Health Service to US hospitals.

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Ransomware attacks are in the spotlight. In September, Los Angeles Unified, the second-largest school district in the US, was hit by ransomware. 

Also: Ransomware: Not enough victims are reporting attacks, and that's a problem for everyone

According to the Associated Press, companies participating in the meeting include Crowdstrike, Mandiant, Cyber Threat Alliance, Microsoft, Cybersecurity Coalition, Palo Alto, Flexxon, SAP, the Institute for Security + Technology, Siemens, Internet 2.0, Tata -TCS, and Telef