Why Employee Offboarding is More than Just a Tick-Box Exercise

When it comes to protecting your business, being aware of cyber security threats is the most basic yet crucial step towards effective business planning and sound risk management.

However, did you know that when identifying such risks, many organisations fail to realise that nearly a third of threats come from former employees?

Now, not only is this a worrying statistic for companies, especially in terms of experiencing a data breach, but it also puts them at risk of being fined up to 4% of their annual revenue under the GDPR regulations.

Keeping this in mind, as a business, are you thorough enough to make sure your employees’ access to your sensitive data is deprovisioned once they leave? Are you making use of the right technologies to ensure they don’t hold any business information on their personal devices, which could remain once their employment ends?

If your answer to any of these questions was “No”, then we’d suggest you continue reading this blog. Below, we’ve explained the importance of offboarding and the potential risks to your business from ex-employees.

Employee Offboarding – Why Is It Important?

While a lot of emphasis is placed on the onboarding process, many businesses overlook employee offboarding.

Sure, a lot of companies might have safety measures in place, especially in the form of restrictive pacts in their contracts. But what exactly happens when employees leave your organisation? Do you have someone specifically hired to manually go through the system and revoke all access to your files and drive?

If you answered “Yes”, then you need to know that you’re among the 92% of companies that lack an automated process. What’s more, this makes you prone to forgetfulness and human error, leaving your business data open to the world.

This is one of the major reasons why it’s important for you to ensure your data and employee access are deprovisioned on time.

For more information on how to protect your business data from breaches, get in touch with our IT experts today.

Three Risks to Your Business from Ex-Employees

1. Innocent Mistakes

Do your employees sync business data with their mobile devices, through solutions like Google Drive or Dropbox? Are they carrying information home through USB devices?

If this has been happening, your employees may not be aware of the security risks to your data and may be doing this solely to work remotely. However, you need to ensure this doesn’t lead to any breaches by installing the right encryption software and file-sync solution.

Doing so will help you restrict your employees from installing third-party solutions, whilst also wiping out business data (if any) from their personal devices.

2. Careless Behaviour

You might have come across many stories of people losing their USB drives filled with confidential business information or leaving their official laptops on trains.

Well, in such cases, we can’t completely blame the employees, because the tech isn’t up to standard for securing the data. That said, companies can prevent this from happening by providing the right systems.

Put simply, you need technologies in place to wipe portable devices remotely. Moreover, you must ensure that proper encryption is installed so that any information on a lost hard drive or laptop is protected.

When it comes to using USBs, it’s best to avoid them altogether, especially because you can now access data without saving it on any device, thanks to today’s high-speed internet services.

3. Malicious Objective

Protecting your business from departing employees can become extremely difficult if you haven’t deprovisioned their access to your systems and they’re leaving under unideal circumstances.

This means that the moment your employee leaves, you must begin the offboarding process and revoke their access rights. To make it easier for you, install systems that automate this process. Not only will it help you monitor all logs and catch any anomalies, but it will also send you an alert and block access.

This whole process is known as Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), and it helps protect your organisation in a range of situations.

Contact Redpalm for All Your Security Needs

It is crucial that you ensure confidential data, whether it concerns your business or your customers, is secured at all times.

Redpalm is a managed service provider (MSP) and a trusted cyber security partner. We equip your business with advanced IT infrastructure to swiftly identify and neutralise any security risks.

Our wide range of services includes technology procurement, vulnerability assessments, endpoint management, and more.

To learn more about our managed IT services, click here or contact us to schedule an appointment today.