Massive Layoffs in 2024 Create a Serious Threat to Cybersecurity

This year’s wave of layoffs has brought an often-overlooked cybersecurity threat to the forefront – offboarding employees. Even large companies with sophisticated cybersecurity systems and procedures can fall victim to insider threats. Just last August, two disgruntled Tesla employees who were let go exposed the personal information of over 75,000 people, including employees. They revealed names, addresses, phone numbers, and even Social Security numbers.

And the problem isn’t going away. According to NerdWallet, as of May 24, 2024, 298 US-based tech companies laid off 84,600 workers and counting. This includes major layoffs at companies like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, as well as smaller tech start-ups. In total, around 257,254 jobs were eliminated in the first quarter of 2024 alone.

Whether or not you’ll need to downsize your team this year, having a proper offboarding process in place is crucial for every business, big or small. It’s more than a routine administrative task – it’s a critical security precaution. If you fail to revoke access for former employees, you could face serious business and legal implications.

Here are some issues you might face:

  1. Theft of Intellectual Property

Employees can walk away with your company’s files, client data, and confidential information stored on personal devices. They might also retain access to cloud-based applications like social media sites and file-sharing services (like Dropbox or OneDrive) 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, used by them when they’re hired by the competition, or used by the former employee to become a competitor. Any way you cut it, it’s a loss for you.

  1. Compliance Violations

Failing to revoke access privileges and remove employees from authorized user lists can register you as noncompliant in heavily regulated industries. This simple mistake can result in large fines, hefty penalties, and, in some cases, legal consequences.

  1. They Delete Everything

If an employee feels unfairly laid off and retains access to their accounts, they could easily delete all their emails and any critical files they can get their hands on. If that data isn’t backed up, you will lose it all.

And if you’re thinking, “I’ll sue them!” – that’s an option, but even if you win, the legal costs, time wasted on the lawsuit, the effort of recovering the data, plus the aggravation and distraction of dealing with it all, are greater than what you might get awarded.

  1. 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.

Do you have an airtight offboarding process to curb these risks? Chances are, you don’t. A 2024 study by Wing revealed that one out of five organizations have indications that some of their former users were not properly offboarded, and those are the people who were astute enough to detect it.

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.

These are just a few ways your IT team can help improve your offboarding process to make it more efficient and secure.

Insider threats can be serious, and it’s important to recognize that they can happen to anyone. Taking proactive steps to protect your organization is essential.

To find out if any gaps in your offboarding process expose you to theft or a data breach, our team will do a free, in-depth risk assessment for qualified companies to help you resolve it. Call us at 505-792-2375 or click here to book a 10-minute phone call consultation.