Security risks involved with the termination of an employee

Security risks involved with the termination of an employee

Termination of an employee is a sensitive matter that should be handled with professionalism and care. If not, ex-employees can cause security risks like;

1. Information and Value Loss – People and information are both assets to an organization. Besides an organization’s intellectual property and trade secrets, people possess knowledge and intangible value, which are both lost on termination of an employee. This information and value loss might cause major security risks because skills to maintain organizations security are not all laid out in policies, guidelines, procedures and practices.

2. Retaliation – If an employee was not let go on good terms, they may decide to retaliate and act against their former employer. This retaliation may involve selling of Intellectual Property (IP) and/or trade secrets that put the former employer in an advantaged position to their competitor. Retaliation may may thus affect financial, reputational and system security of an organization especially if the former employee held a sensitive or high-value position.

3. Potential Threats – If the employee held a sensitive or high-value position in the former organization, they already have valuable information about the systems and their vulnerabilities, as well as the practices, guidelines, procedures and policies memorized. If they decide to act on this knowledge, they pose a potentially very costly threat.

Security risks involved with the termination of an employee
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