Jason knocked on the open door. ‘Todd, we have a problem.’

‘Yeah?’ Todd said, without looking up from his screen.

‘Yeah,’ Cynthia said from the corridor. ‘A massive one.’

Todd shifted his gaze to the doorway. ‘And you are?’

‘Cynthia Jones.’ The young, black woman pushed past Jason, entering the office. ‘And you should be glad I wear a white hat not a black one.’

‘You’re not wearing any hat.’

‘You really are clueless, aren’t you?’ Cynthia said, examining Todd’s bookcases. ‘You’ve no frigging idea the shit you’re in.’

‘I’m sorry, who areyou exactly? And what’s the shit you think we’re in.’

‘I’m the person that discovered that you have my personal details stored in an unencrypted database on an insecure server located somewhere in Idaho. And that some enterprising hacker has put up the entire database for sale on the dark web for $320,000. Or $35,000 for a 10 per cent sample.’

‘What?’

‘Are you slow?’ Cynthia plucked a glass paperweight from a shelf. ‘You are the Chief Operations Officer for this company, right?’

‘What the … How did you get to my office? Jason, get security.’

‘Get security! You’re hilarious. You’re way too late for that.’ Cynthia laughed, placing the paperweight back. ‘About six months too late.’

‘We’ve had a major data breach, Todd,’ Jason said. Cynthia was right, his boss was often slow on the uptake, though never hilarious. ‘She showed me the server and the files and the data auction.’

‘You’re saying someone has stolen our data?’

‘Ding, ding!’ Cynthia crowed. ‘The penny has finally dropped. Yes, genius, someone has stolen your data. But not the shitty data in your app, but the personal data of your customers. Which they’re selling for one cent a record. One cent! Which is a total frigging bargain, except it’s free if folks know where to look. But even if you pay, the buyer is laughing all the way to the bank given they get everything they need to steal an identity and go on a spending spree. You didn’t even hash the frigging credit card details! What kind of amateur operation are you running?’

‘And it’s definitely our data?’ Todd asked, looking at Jason.

‘Yes, it’s your frigging data!’ Cynthia said.

Jason nodded.

‘But it can’t be.’