Make sure ex-employee won’t take your data out of your company door. Keep your data safe by implementing these steps.
Have you ever thought that an ex-employee can harm or steal your data? If not, here is a key finding by Symantec’s for you…
“Half of employees who left or lost their jobs in the last 12 months kept confidential corporate data…and 40 percent plan to use it in their new jobs.”
Stealing or destruction of the data by ex-employee is not a new thing when they are fired from the organization or departing the company. In 2009, seven ex-Citibank employees were booked for information theft under the Computer Misuse and Banking Act in Singapore.
What if your former employee sells your sales database to your competitor? You may have reliable and upright workforce. But you never know what will happen when they leave your company. Why take a chance?
To ensure the safety of your data, you should incorporate a policy for departing employees. Here’s how…
- Make sure departing employees return all company-issued equipment like laptop, cell phone, tablet or any other computing assets. Properly check the returned equipment for malicious software or tracker.
- Change all active passwords across the company’s devices and network after they (employees) depart.
- Consider changing building access codes or bio-metric interfaces providing access to the offices or sensitive zones across your organization.
- Create and enforce Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) which states that the theft of data will have negative consequences to them and their future employer. It can be included in the employment contract or you can ask them to sign the agreement when they leave.
- AND ABOVE ALL, track the activities around the sensitive data when the person-in-charge or concerned employee is about to leave your company. It will let you prevent the threat in earlier stages.
Keep in mind that data theft by departing or former employee is real. You can minimize the threat by taking above-mentioned steps.