A story I saw online recently was a shock but not unexpected, a former employee was holding a ransom on company data.

Don’t let your passwords be held to ransom. Has my password been held to Ransom?

On reading an article it showed a recently fired IT worker attempted to hold a Google account to a $200,000 ransom.

The worker had been fired and decided to change the Google password to an account controlled by a college, locking them out and all the students being able to access the data. Don’t let your passwords be held to ransom.

Has my Password been held to Ransom?

Google originally refused to hand over the password as it was in the name of the former employee and not the company. Google finally handed over the password after a news article spread.

$200,000 would have been publicly embarrassing and also could have set a precedent for future ransom situations. No matter what you do policies need to be in place and we would recommend a password manager. You should make sure that passwords are not controlled by just one person.