When an employee leaves your business, whether they decide to leave or they are asked to leave, it is important to take certain steps to ensure that your business remains secure. Although your ex-employee is most probably an honest and trustworthy individual, situations can arise that should be avoided. Whether by accident or deliberately, an unauthorised person having access to your business network can be dangerous and contrary to privacy regulations. When an employee leaves your business, ensure you follow these steps to keep your network and data secure:
Deactivate Email
First and foremost, the former employee’s work email account should be deactivated. Whilst this seems obvious, you must ensure that it is deactivated promptly. Once notice has been given that the employee is leaving, your IT team should be made aware of the leaving date.
Change Passwords
Change the password of any programme, system or application the employee had access to during their time with your company.
Retrieve Work-Issued Devices
If your business gives employees mobile phones, laptops, door fobs or any other device, ensure that each on is accounted for. If the employee still has access to their devices, they have immediate access to your network, and potentially premises, which poses a risk.
Have Predetermined Termination Procedures
When an employee leaves the company, there should be operational procedures in place to discontinue their access to company information. The employee should be made aware of the procedure in their exit interview.
Use the Cloud
If your business has not already migrated to the cloud, please click here for further reading. If you are using the cloud, disconnecting the departing employee from your network will be very simple as you are not storing information locally. Restricting their access to the cloud is simple so you can prevent them accessing any critical company information.
Backup all Data
Whilst the importance of backing up your data cannot be stressed enough, it is especially important in the context of an employee who is leaving. Firstly, you’ll want to ensure that all the work they have done for the company has been saved and backed up. Remember that employees may have used applications such as Dropbox to store data outside the business network. Archiving company data keeps data protected and secure and can prevent theft and sabotage.
Non-Compete and Non-Disclosure Agreements
All employee contracts should contain solid non-compete and non-disclosure clauses to protect your business. When you conduct an exit interview with the employee prior to their departure, remind them of the non-compete and non-disclosure agreements. Company information is confidential and should ever be shared outside of the business.
Cardonet have been working with businesses for the past twenty years to help them overcome their technological challenges. We have engineering bases in the United Kingdom, Europe and Southern California and our group of highly experienced engineers are available 24/7 to assist and ensure that your IT infrastructure is secure and running seamlessly. Call us on +44 203 034 2244 or +1 323 984 8908 Alternately, you can contact us online. We will be happy to help you overcome your IT challenges.
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