2024 saw a massive wave of layoffs from US tech giants Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.
Unfortunately, this large-scale downsizing brought about a cybersecurity issue that many business owners overlooked – the process of offboarding employees.
While you may think large corporations have top-of-the-line cybersecurity systems, some have failed to protect themselves from insider threats.
This is clear in the case of Tesla, where two disgruntled former employees leaked confidential information after being terminated. The personal data of 75,000 people was exposed, including their addresses, phone numbers, and social security numbers.
The Risks of Inadequate Offboarding
An offboarding process is more than a routine administrative task. When an employee is leaving your company, regardless of the reason, a poor approach could lead to serious business implications, including:
1. Theft of Intellectual Property
Unfortunately, IT departments do not always keep track of employees’ accounts or forget to revoke access. Before leaving, your employees can download or make copies of files and client data stored on the company’s devices or in the cloud. This valuable information could end up in the hands of competitors or be used by the former employee to establish a similar business.
2. Compliance Violations
If your business operates in a highly regulated industry, failing to remove past employees’ access can register you as non-compliant. This can result in hefty fines and sometimes legal consequences, potentially damaging the company’s reputation and stakeholder trust.
3. Deletion of Critical Files
A former employee could, mistakenly or vindictively, delete important files from the system. If that data is not backed up, it will be lost forever. Filing a lawsuit against them could help you recover the data, however, the stress and costs dealing with it are not worth it.
4. Data Breach
Unhappy employees can expose your business’s sensitive data to the public, making it vulnerable to cybercriminals. This could lead to ransomware attacks, malware infections, and other types of social engineering exploitation.
Properly Offboarding an Employee
In a study by Wing, more than 60% of the organizations admitted to irregularities in their offboarding process. Proper offboarding procedures are essential to ensure a smooth transition of the employee, while protecting the company’s data.
- Implement the principle of “Least Privilege” – give new employees access to only the files and programs they need to perform their job.
- Keep an inventory of assigned equipment and retrieve it as soon as the employee leaves.
- Disable access rights – automate revoking access to company systems, accounts, and applications.
- Review account activity for suspicious behavior – look for signs of unauthorized access attempts or large data downloads.
Click here for a step-by-step guide for offboarding employees, including IT and HR responsibilities.
Do you have an Efficient Offboarding Process?
Losing an employee can be devastating, but losing your data is much worse!
Our team can identify any gaps in your offboarding process and help you set up an efficient, secure system. Book a 15-minute discovery call to get started.
