What to do if something goes wrong

It is a Tuesday afternoon. Meera clicks a link in an email that looks exactly like the file server login, types her password, and presses Enter. The page reloads strangely — and her stomach drops as the last lesson's checklist replays in her head. The sender address. The urgency. She has just handed her work password to a stranger.

This lesson is that moment, minute by minute. Read it now, while nothing is wrong, because the plan has to exist before the emergency.

Minute one: change the password

Whatever happened, the stolen password changes first — immediately, from a device you trust, reaching the site by typing its address yourself. Never go back through the email that started this.

Then remember Lesson 1: if that password was reused anywhere else, those accounts are exactly as stolen as this one. Change them all, starting with your main email. This is the moment a password manager pays for itself twice over — nothing else shared the password, and the list of things to change is one item long.