Laid off employees cause security threat to firms
By Pavan Kumar Hubli   |   Tuesday, 19 May 2009, 17:35 IST   |    9 Comments
Printer Print Email Email
Laid off employees cause security threat to firms
Bangalore: Layoffs in the Information Technology sector as a measures to cut cost might have given the desired result for a company, but in return those firms are now facing a security threat from its former employees. Such kinds of threat are not new to Indian IT firms. Central Bureau of Investigation's Cybercrime Survey in 2001 had identified 25 percent of organizations employees or former employees as the main cybercrime perpetrators, compared to 75 percent hackers, who came from outside. Though there is not an exact figure regarding the current cyber related crimes, Senior Engineers and Human resource Managers of the IT firms agree that "there has been an increase in the breaching". As a preventive measure, many organizations during the 'sendoff- ceremony' call the employee to a meeting hall and give them the termination letter, and not allow them to go back to their cabin again. "I was called to meeting hall, where they handed over my termination letter," said a former employee of an ill-famous company which hit headlines recently for wrong reasons, requesting anonymity."They did not even allow me to go back to my cubical fearing I might tamper with the information related to the project I was working on. One of the office boy brought my belongings from my desk." But no matter whatever measures the companies are taking to protect the data from being manipulated, the former employees are fiddling with the security. Some senior software engineers and HR managers of Suninfo, MindTree and many other organizations said that they are "tightening the screws" so that there is no misuse of information. The passwords and access codes to enter a program are constantly changed so as to keep the information intact. "This is not new to the IT Industry, there has been many incidents where a former employee has tried to sabotage information," said Arvind S Ram, Team leader of infotech. "One can say that there has been an increase in such incidents now because of the layoff," he added.

siliconindia