Sanjay Rao
security engineer
Calm under pressure; backups you have not tested do not exist
Locked Out
Monday morning brings encrypted files, a ransom note and clients’ tax returns due in nine days.
Planned · not started yet
Digital life & technology Living with uncertainty Money under pressure Workplace Tense Bracing
The premise
Monday morning brings encrypted files, a ransom note and clients’ tax returns due in nine days. Ada learns incident response, data-breach duties and how to rebuild securely, while deciding whether to pay criminals her father would have refused to deal with.
The protagonist
Ada Ibekwe-Moretti — Partner in a family accountancy firm hit by ransomware
The council
Every council member is an original fictional character. None represents, quotes or is endorsed by a real person.
Kirsten Lachance
incident responder
Brisk; contain first, investigate second
Duncan Gallo
cyber-insurance broker
Commercial; read the policy before you need it
How the story moves
The attack, the recovery and the lasting changes to the firm; a second, smaller attack a year later tests the new defences.
What readers take away
- How ransomware attacks work
- Incident-response steps
- Backups and testing restores
- Data-breach notification duties
- Whether to pay and why it is usually wrong
- Multi-factor authentication and patching
- Phishing awareness training
- Cyber insurance and what it covers
- Write a basic security policy
- Run a tabletop exercise
- Notify customers properly
- Choose managed security services
The books
- 1Monday Planned
- 2Containment Planned
- 3Clients Planned
- 4Rebuild Planned
Book titles are working titles and may change before publication. No book is on sale until the complete series is finished, checked and released.