Reducing Cybersecurity Threats From Ex-Employees

Dateline: August 4, 2017

Welcome to our Friday WRAP – one thought-provoking idea to think about over the weekend.

Most cybersecurity breaches are aided by insiders…either intentionally or unintentionally.  But a recent study showed that ex-employees may also be a threat, but this one is more easily managed with the right processes in place.  According to Bob Violino, a free-lance writer focused on cybersecurity and other information technology issues, a study was done by identity management company OneLogin showed that 50% of companies continue to give ex-employees access to company systems after they leave.  The Information Management article, Many Firms Turn A Blind Eye To Top Data Threat: Ex-Employees, reported,

The research found that nearly half (48 percent) of respondents are aware of former employees who still have access to corporate applications, with 50 percent saying ex-employee’s accounts remain active once they have left the company for longer than a day. One quarter (25 percent) of respondents take more than a week to deprovision a former employee and the same percentage said they don’t know how long accounts remain active once the employee has left the company.

“The bottom-line is that companies aren’t following very basic but essential security measures around employee provisioning and deprovisioning,” said Alvaro Hoyos, chief information security officer at OneLogin. “This should be a cause for concern among business leaders, especially considering how many data breaches are caused by ex-employees.”

What is your process for removing access for ex-employees?  How can it be tightened up to increase security?

That’s a WRAP!  Have a great weekend!

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