Organisations in the UK believe that former employees with access to corporate systems and data could pose security risks.
According to a research by Centrify, 32% of the respondents in the UK believe that former employees can easily log in and access systems or information with old passwords.
Around 49% of the IT decision makers (ITDMs) said that ex-employees and contractors are ‘off-boarded’ the day they leave the organisation, but more than half admitted that it could take up to a week for them to deny access rights to those who left the organisation.
Nearly 40% of UK ITDMs working for companies with more than 500 employees, and 50% of ITDMs working for companies with less than 500 employees, admitted that 10% of employees have privileged access to data which could be misused to breach confidential and highly sensitive information.
Around 34% of the respondents claimed to have shared access credentials with other employees, and 32% claimed that they have shared the access information with contractors too.
Out of those who admitted of sharing credentials with contractors, nearly 68% claimed that in the UK former contractors can access data with old passwords.
Centrify CTO EMEA Barry Scott said: "Giving employees elevated access to privileged accounts and the organisation’s most critical data, applications systems and network devices is essentially giving them the ‘keys to the kingdom’.
"It’s the equivalent of providing the front door key to your house – and you’d be very, very careful who you gave that to."
