The massive wave of layoffs in 2024 brings a cybersecurity threat that most business owners aren’t focusing on – offboarding employees. Even big-time brands that you would expect to have top-of-the-line cybersecurity systems, processes, and procedures in place fail to adequately protect themselves from insider threats. This August marks a year since two disgruntled Tesla employees went rogue after being let go and exposed to the personal information – including names, addresses, phone numbers, and even the Social Security numbers – of over 75,000 employees.

Some of those issues include:

• Theft Of Intellectual Property – Employees can sneak away with YOUR company’s files, client data, and confidential information stored on personal devices, as well as retain access to cloud-based applications like social media sites and file-sharing sites (Dropbox or OneDrive, for example) that your IT department doesn’t know about or forgets to change the password to.

• A study by Osterman Research revealed that 69% of businesses experience data loss due to employee turnover, and 87% of employees who leave take data with them. Most often, the information you worked hard to gather is sold to competitors and used by them when hired by the competition or by the former employee to BECOME a competitor. Any way you cut it, it screws YOU.

• Compliance Violations – Failing to revoke access privileges and removing employees from authorized user lists can register you as non-compliant in heavily regulated industries. This simple mistake can result in large fines, hefty penalties, and, in some cases, legal consequences.
• They DELETE Everything – If employees feel unfairly laid-off and retain access to their accounts, they could easily delete ALL their e-mails and any critical files they can access. If that data isn’t backed up, you will lose it ALL.
   
  And for those thinking, “I’ll sue them!” Rightfully so, but even if you do sue them and win, the hard reality is that the legal costs, time wasted on the lawsuit and recovering the data, plus the aggravation and distraction of dealing with it all, are greater costs than what you might get awarded if you win the lawsuit and might collect in damages.

• Data Breach – This could be the most terrifying of all. Unhappy employees who feel they have been wronged can make you the star of the next devastating data breach headline and incur a costly lawsuit to go with it. It could be as simple as making one click and downloading, exposing, or modifying your clients’ or employees’ private information, financial records, or even trade secrets.

How DO you properly offboard an employee?

• Implement The Principle of Least Privilege – Successful offboarding starts with proper onboarding. New employees should ONLY be given access to the files and programs they need to do their jobs. This should be meticulously documented to make offboarding easier.
  
• Leverage Automation – Your IT team can help use automation to streamline revoking access to multiple software applications simultaneously, saving time and resources while reducing the likelihood of manual errors.
  
• Implement Continuous Monitoring – You can implement software that tracks who is doing what and where on the company network. This can help you identify suspicious behavior by an unauthorized user and help you determine if a former employee retains access to private accounts.