Dive Brief:

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is urging the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Microsoft for allegedly enabling the massive cyberattack on St. Louis-based health system Ascension last year.

In a letter sent to FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson Wednesday, Wyden alleged the technology giant contributed to the attack by “delivering dangerous, insecure software” to the government and critical infrastructure industries, including the healthcare sector.

The ransomware attack on Ascension, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit health systems, took critical technology systems offline for weeks, forced some facilities to divert ambulances and exposed the sensitive health data of 5.5 million people .

Dive Insight:

Microsoft has a “de facto monopoly” with its Windows operating system

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