Protecting Sensitive Data from Ex (or soon-to-be Ex!) Employees | Fraser Valley Tech Security Support

Losing an employee is often a sad day. You may be losing a hard-working champion to a fabulous new adventure… or you may have to fire a disgruntled slacker for misconduct. Whatever the reason, it can be an emotional day for many. For a business owner, though, it can also be quite a dangerous day… especially if it is a firing or laying-off scenario. The employee could have had access to all sorts of valuable company and/or customer data, before their dismissal. And for some companies recently, an employee doesn’t even have to be a disgruntled one to be a potential danger! So, how to you protect your company data when an employee leaves? The answer is in your off-boarding procedure.

Have a Solid Off-Boarding Procedure

Having a solid off-boarding IT procedure in place can save all kinds of headaches down the road. And, the time to do it is long before you ever have need for it…ie today or tomorrow! Have a meeting with your IT department/service to discuss what areas of the company records would be vulnerable. Then, you can put together a solid procedure.

Things you may want to consider…

Here are a few things you may want to consider when putting together an off-boarding procedure to protect your data.

1. Use a least-access method with all employees – ie only give access to what the employee needs to do their job. For example, if they don’t need access to financial folders, don’t give them access to that location on the company servers. It means less to deal with later.

2. When the day of a dismissal comes up, alert your IT department in advance, so they can be ready to begin the procedures to protect your data as soon as (or just before) the employee is notified.

3. Disable the employee’s access to their office account, but don’t delete it straight away, in case you need any files. Copy or relocate these files, and then you can delete the account. (Have this done and delete the account within 30 days.)

4. Change the password to any remote or web tools that they used, along with passwords to shared accounts.

5. Change the passwords/pin numbers to any other devices like copiers and alarm systems.

6. Disable the employee’s email & voicemail and have them forwarded to a relevant employee or manager.

7. Remember to remove the employee from any group lists… such as email directories, company email groups, phone listings and your website (if you have an employee list on your website!).

Depending on your companies resources and working procedures, this list may cover everything you need to do. Or, there may be a few more areas to consider to protect your data, but it is a good place to start.

Need Help to Protect your Data?

If you need advice on what your company can do to prepare for this kind of scenario, contact us!  Our team will be happy help in putting the tech side of a procedure into place.