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.

Carl Matthew Hamilton
Carl has the experience required to solve any IT queries & manage your IT infrastructure.
With over 20 years in the IT industry and a vast amount of experience and author of 300 posts and many more waiting to be published.
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“Our email wasn’t performing very well so we asked Hamilton Systems to take a look & Carl proposed to migrate us to MS Exchange.
Carl was very helpful throughout & the migration went very well.
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Carl Hamilton
22+ Years IT Experience
Business Phone Systems (VOIP)
Cyber Security Specialist
Experts in Outlook Support & Migrations
IT Support in Harrogate
Outsourced IT
Social Media Management
Website Hosting & SEO Management