As high-profile ex-employee Dominic Cummings rages a very public war with his former boss, a new study has revealed that employers in the UK are exposing themselves to unnecessary security risks from former staff members.
According to the survey by access control and security provider Digital ID (www.digitalid.co.uk), just over a third of employers admitted to NEVER changing sensitive login and password details. This includes for emails, cloud systems, building entry access codes and social media accounts. A further 23% said they changed themonly once a year, even if there was a high turnover of staff.
Digital ID said this was a particularly worrying statistic given that one in five of the past employees surveyed admitted to having tried to access old accounts to see if they could.
Fewer than half (45%) of the employers interviewed said they had procedures in place to ensure all equipment, including staff ID badges, were returned when a person left the company.
SENSITIVE
And a quarter of the employees surveyed admitted to taking sensitive information such as contact details, dates, price lists and plans for new products with them when they left a job.
“Our research indicates that lots of companies are leaving themselves wide open to all kinds of security breaches,” said Adam Bennett of Digital ID.
“The UK has watched on aghast at Boris Johnson’s former aide Dominic Cummings’ attempts to take down his ex-boss. And celebrated in equal measure when a former HSBC cleaner posted a resignation letter shaming her boss for unfair treatment on social media, only for it to go viral.
“What these situations illustrate is that for many businesses, especially SMEs with inadequate security systems and HR procedures in place, ex-employees can pose a very real threat. Especially if they leave on bad terms.
“Nobody likes to think that a relationship will turn sour when they start out, but a quick internet search will reveal plenty of cases of rogue employees causing all kinds of havoc. And in the age of social media, crises can very quickly escalate. In many instances, it’s completely avoidable with the introduction of some simple security procedures.”
