When a team member moves on and a new person replaces them, we know it can be a hectic and busy period. Whilst you’re showing the new starter the ropes and planning the leaving drinks for your cherished team member, it’s easy to forget to remove their access to business accounts and systems.
It’s important to remember that attackers could come in the form of an ex-employee who still has access to your business LinkedIn page or can still send emails from HubSpot, therefore it’s important to check the following once a team member has left as you never know who may be holding a grudge and want to post on your behalf or gain access to company data once they have left.
- Revoke Admin Rights
- Ensure you remove said person from maintaining admin rights to your social media pages. This will eliminate the risk of sensitive data being retrieved and the ex-team member will be thankful not to receive anymore notifications.
- Change any relevant passwords
- Be sure to change all passwords to ensure they can access any programmes, websites or your CMS system.
- Alternatively, if you use a password manager such as LastPass, be sure to remove them from the sharing list to eliminate the risk of an attack.
- Remove their access to emails
- An ex-team member with a sour taste in their mouth may decide out of anger to send emails from their company email address which may cause reputational damage. Therefore, it is important to remove their access but ensure you gain access in case you need to follow up on anything.
- Entry to the building
- Ensure any fobs are returned once they leave so they can’t trespass into the building.
- If you don’t have a fob system and instead everyone uses the same code to enter, you should think about getting one to increase the security of your building, safety of staff and privacy of your data.
- Having a sign in system would also be beneficial.
It’s easy to forget to make these changes but incredibly important to implement them. Do not forget to make the necessary password updates and revoke admin access once a team member leaves a business to secure your company data.
Even they have left on good terms, you never know who could get hold of your data once they have left. Therefore, taking the above precautions will hopefully help keep your business data in the right hands and safe.