Cybersecurity is a growing field as the IT sector continues to expand and technology reigns. Corporations even create special training for their employees, to prevent them from being scammed, phished, or socially engineered to give up valuable information.
However, knowing basic security protocols is crucial for every Internet user, not only for specific corporation employees. Today’s story covers how a woman misunderstood a simple situation and thought she was being hacked by a former employee, even though that wasn’t the case at all.
More Info: Reddit
Forgetting your password is mostly a minor inconvenience, but that's not the case for some
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)
The young man's former boss contacted his mom asking for her son to return her Gmail account password and accused the ex-employee of hacking
The young man explained that he didn't have access to the ex-employer's personal account at all, while she had actually forgotten her password and was threatening legal action
Image credits: u/madebyapollo
Image credits: u/madebyapollo
Image credits: u/madebyapollo
Of course, the man told his ex-boss to stop contacting him and his family, meanwhile the woman had probably simply remembered her password
Recently, a young man approached Reddit’s r/antiwork community and shared screenshots of a conversation he had with his ex-boss, a 60-year-old woman. The woman somehow got a hold of his mom’s phone number, and contacted her, asking for her son to return her Gmail account password.
What’s unusual about this, is not only that the young man is a grown adult, but he hasn’t lived with his parents for a while, and lives quite far away from them. The boss’ attempt to contact her ex-employee's mom doesn’t make sense in the first place, but the circumstances make it even more weird.
What’s more, is that the woman accused her ex-employee of hacking her work account. The young man didn’t have access to her personal Gmail account, even though he was the administrator of a business account earlier. His ability to make changes to the account was removed as soon as the ex-boss changed the Gmail password, as he was then immediately logged out.
The lady continued to make accusations of the young man hacking her, saying that she would make sure to “spend every penny I have to sink you in court”. Of course, being threatened with legal action out of the blue is not something you should take lightly, so the young man told the woman to stop contacting him, and his family. The woman ended the conversation with “what a shame”, as in she thought she had enough evidence to take the man to court.
Image credits: Stephen Phillips - Hostreviews.co.uk (not the actual photo)
In reality, she forgot her own Google account password and wasn’t able to sign in. The man later added that he was hired as an assistant to manage the lady’s passwords as she couldn’t do it herself. As per OP’s (Original Poster) words, “This was totally in character for her. She was always telling me about how she was set to sue someone or expose them.” Shortly after, the woman stopped reaching out to OP at all as she probably remembered her password.
Creating a strong password is not only crucial for your security, but it also needs to be ingrained in your memory as well. Even though software is being developed for password management, some passwords are still bound to be held in memory only. The Canadian Centre For Cybersecurity recommends using passphrases instead of long passwords that are made of random letters and numbers, as passphrases are easier to remember.
Another recommendation is to create unique passwords for every instance. This way, if your information is breached, your data would only be vulnerable to one source. If you use the same password for everything, you could be in way more trouble.
All in all, make sure to create strong, creative passwords that you will remember forever, so you won't need to contact your former employees. Have you ever been in similar circumstances such as OP? Do you have any tips for creating strong passwords? Share your insights in the comments below.
Redditors share similar experiences working in IT-related fields and how often people threaten them with legal action
