Disgruntled Employee Quits San Jose Business

Any business manager will be worried when an employee hands in a resignation letter while heading out. That’s the worst-case scenario that a business leader wants to face. It not only lowers a company’s productivity levels but also compromises the security of your company’s sensitive information, such as financial records, client lists, CRM systems, and transaction files.

It is not common for a disgruntled employee to leave a company without talking through issues. It’s also not uncommon for them to try and use your company information maliciously when they leave bitterly. According to a study by Code42, data exposer by employees who left their job from mid-2020 to mid-2021 increased by 40%. Additionally, 61% more exposure events occurred between April and June 2021.

Such situations should be of great concern because it takes only one employee with privileged access to wreck an entire company. The repercussions can devastate your business finances and reputability.

Data Leakages: How Managed IT Services Can Help Protect Your Company

Whether through malice or negligence, information leakages by a former staff can cost your company significant amounts in legal fees, penalties and fines. Partnering with a professional IT company helps to lock out any former team member from accessing confidential information. Hiring Managed IT solutions protects your IT infrastructure in several ways.

Perimeter Management

Your IT expert can remotely safeguard your computer infrastructure’s perimeter using robust firewalls and intrusion detection tools. The service also manages configuration settings to ensure maximum security and proper software and hardware function.

Endpoint Security

Endpoint protection ensures that all access points to a company’s network are secure. With many businesses promoting Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policies, it means employees can access data using their personal and home devices. Without endpoint protection, it becomes impossible even to detect any attempted breach by a bitter employee. This service guarantees safe data protection regardless of how employees work and access the system.

Risk Assessment

Another critical IT security service, risk assessment evaluates your company’s risk exposure for crucial business assets and systems, procedures, and controls. The solution mitigates risks of shared information and quickly detects an emerging threat to automatically update new technologies to alleviate the risk.

How to Protect Your Company Data When Your Employee Suddenly Leaves

When you want to keep your most confidential information in-house, you need to move quickly and immediately remove any access to company data by an ex-employee. Below are some practical tips for safeguarding your in-house data.

Manage and Secure Passwords

One of the first steps to protect private business information is changing the password for all confidential logins to block any individual accounts a former employee had. That is only effective when you’re confident that no unknown connections are linked to your company network.

It would be best to leverage password management tools to automatically generate, store, and share sensitive passwords among teams. If any of the team members suddenly leaves, you can disable their account with a click of a button, and they’ll instantly lose access to every sensitive record that requires a login. The program also makes it easy to create a small team to manage and control who has access to your company’s information.

Implement Automation

Manual termination of accounts is ineffective in keeping former employees from accessing top-secret information. Automating your entire IT infrastructure means you can carry simple functions and commands, such as locking an employee from accessing the network or freezing someone’s resources. An upside to that is that it alleviates the guesswork related to manual terminations and instantly changes all the resources that an ex-staff member had access to.

Still, it would help to have pre-determined termination procedures to immediately cut off any employee from retrieving any critical business information. For instance, you can tie all your access points to employees’ Google apps email accounts. That makes it easy to change that one password and lock a specific employee from accessing information across the entire organization.

Secure Your Wireless Connections

If your business uses a wireless network, take caution because a malice-driven former employee will seize the first opportunity to breach the network. While an encryption key can make access difficult to outsiders, a privileged ex-employee can quickly understand how to bypass password-key requirements.

With a professional IT company by your side, you can strengthen your router using powerful, breach-proof encryptions that turn off any broadcasting function to make the network undetectable from an unrecognized device. It minimizes security risks because the bitter employee cannot hack into a system they can’t see.

Leverage Mobile Device Management 

As aforementioned, many companies have BOYD policies that let employees access sensitive company information from their personal devices. That’s why it’s critical to have a multi-layer security approach and data protection strategies to protect your company’s data, even if it is lodged in an employee’s home device.

That’s when an IT company’s endpoint protection solutions are valuable. You can remotely wipe out any sensitive company info from a former staff member’s devices through managed IT services. You can disable their access to emails, CRM files, and company documents. Mobile management also safeguards your data without resorting to awkward actions like repossessing company-issued devices containing the employee’s personal files.

Use the Cloud

It’s challenging to safeguard business data from intrusions caused by a previously privileged account. However, cloud-based storage makes it easy to limit employees’ access to confidential systems and information. Cloud makes it possible to manage and change passwords across all login files so that a former staff member cannot access your systems.

Furthermore, you can easily bar their access to your cloud account even if they attempt to use a work computer. You can rest assured they won’t retrieve any files or documents you don’t want them to see.

Conclusion

Your company information is the driving force behind your business. Therefore, it’s critical to ensure that the sensitive data is protected at all costs, regardless of whether it’s confidential transaction information, development plans, CRM systems, client lists, or financial records. If an employee suddenly quits or gets fired, you need to immediately terminate their accounts within the company’s network.

Nonetheless, part ways with them amicably to lower their intent to steal company data. Studies show that 61% of employees who left a company feeling disgruntled stole data, while only 26% of those who left on a positive note stole data. Hence, show your support for the employee even as they leave. You can also offer recommendations to provide future career opportunities.

Don’t wait until an employee abruptly quits to start hurrying to secure your company’s private information. Partner with BC Networks today and get security- and client-focused IT solutions,