I Got Hacked ... or Did I? What to do

Last week I went to clean out my spam email and found this piece of trash. It caught my eye because the subject line said: Change your password ********** immediately. Your account has been hacked.

I will definitely give this scammer credit for making a subject that was attention-getting - the password was very similar to one I used before.

The note goes on to say that I need to pay about $800 USD in Bitcoin to a provided account. (how generous!) The author went on to say that I couldn't get in contact because

I did have a minor freak-out but then thought through what the email said.

1. The phisher said there was evidence of dirty habits. If watching CNN on YouTube is dirty, you caught me.
2. The password wasn't exactly what I used to use. I also knew that my password was different at the date of the "hack".
3. The hacker phisher said s/he used my own account against me. So, I went into my sent box to see if an email was sent from my account. It wasn't.
4. I went to Have I Been Pwned? and entered in my email address. Yeah, a few years ago my email info had been leaked from a third party. 
5. Thought through the worst-case scenario - the phisher actually had control over my computer and if I didn't pay would brick it. -- NEW LAPTOP! No, seriously, I can get a nice laptop for less than the asking ransome.

It made for a good lesson with my class and Tech Crew. I talked through the problem with both groups and told them my thinking and what to do. My class suggested I should tell the IT Director, cute.

If you think your Gmail account has been hacked:

1. At the bottom of the Gmail inbox is something that says "Last account activity" with a link to Details. Click the link to see when and where your account was last accessed. (Unfortunately for this problem, the "hack" was a few months prior so I wouldn't have been able to see that anyway.)
2. Go to myaccount.google.com and go to the Sign-in and Security tab. Check account activity and run a Security Checkup.
3. Change your password.
4. It might be a good idea to remove any connected apps that you don't need at this point as well.