According to a study by the security company, Kaspersky, on the behavior of SMEs during crises shows that staff reductions can cause additional cybersecurity risks. However, only 51% of organizational leaders are confident that their former employees will not have access to company data stored on the cloud servicesand only 53% are sure that former workers cannot use corporate accounts.
Although team retention was the top priority for almost half of organizations during the pandemic, according to studies, many companies may have to resort to cutting jobs to lower costs in difficult times.
The misuse of data by former employees in their new jobs or doing business on their own was one of the main concerns of the bosses. The survey results suggest that most business leaders are concerned that former employees share internal company data with new employers (63%) or using corporate data, such as previous client databases, to launch their own business (60%). In general, 31% of those surveyed consider workforce reductions as a possible measure to cut costs in the event of a crisis.
Other popular cost reduction measures include decreased spending on advertising and promotion (36%) and in vehicles (34%). Cybersecurity, on the other hand, does not seem to be an area of the company in which leaders prefer to save budget.
«Unauthorized access can become a huge problem for any business, affecting a company’s competitiveness when corporate data is transferred to a competitor, sold or deleted.“, explains Alexey Vovk, Kaspersky’s Head of Information Security. «This problem is compounded when employees actively use non-corporate or “shadow IT” services that are not implemented or controlled by corporate IT departments. If the use of these services is not managed after the termination of an employee, there is little chance that access to the information shared through these applications will be closed for a former employee.
