Previous employees with access to corporate data remain a threat to businesses

Offboarding employees securely is a key problem for business leaders, with 40% concerned that employees who leave a company retain knowledge of passwords that grant access to corporate data. This is according to A research by My1Login, which found few organizations are implementing access management solutions that work with all applications, meaning most lack the ability to revoke access to all corporate data as soon as an employee leaves.

Previous employees with access to corporate data via login credentials pose a considerable threat to businesses, increasing their risk of data breaches. Adopting an access management and Single Sign-On (SSO) solution – which gives employees a passwordless experience – is one way for organizations to improve the security of offboarding.

However, the survey of 1,000 employees and 1,000 business leaders found that while 51% of business leaders use an SSO solution, only 20% of business leaders report using an SSO solution that works with all applications, indicating that a large proportion of SSO solutions fail to integrate with all web applications.

Furthermore, 27% of business leaders say their employees need to log into other applications that fall outside of SSO. Thus, many SSO solutions in place still require employees to create passwords for some applications, meaning the risk an SSO solution is designed to remove is still prevalent.

Employees are frustrated by password requirements

The survey also found that 84% of employees are frustrated by password requirements while 63% of business leaders believe employees have too many passwords to remember. Shifting away from a reliance on passwords altogether would therefore benefit existing employees’ productivity as well as improving organizations’ security.

Mike Newman, CEO at My1Login, commented: “Offboarding is a blind spot in organizations’ cyber security defences, with many failing to realise, or act on, the threat posed by employees leaving a company with knowledge of business passwords that protect sensitive and confidential data. The risks surrounding offboarding have been heightened during the pandemic as organizations have adopted remote and hybrid working practices, meaning offboarding can take longer and businesses have less direct control over the process due to the increasing proliferation of cloud apps.”

Newman continued: “It is only through eliminating the need for employees to remember passwords that the risks associated with offboarding can be mitigated. Giving employees a passwordless experience – as offered by SSOs that work with all applications – not only addresses cyber security risks, but it also saves employees and organizations time, as the ‘logging in’ process becomes more streamlined and efficient.

“As hybrid working becomes standard practice, it’s crucial organizations revisit the security of processes such as offboarding to ensure the right tools are in place to reduce the risk of cyberattack.”