With Mass Firings, Here Is a Sketchy Factoid to Give One Pause

November 17, 2022

In the midst of the Twitter turmoil and the mea culpae of the Zuck and the Zen master (Jack Dorsey), the idea about organizational vulnerability is not getting much attention. One facet of layoffs or RIFs (reductions in force) is captured in the article “Only a Quarter of Businesses Have Confidence Ex-Employees Can No Longer Access Infrastructure.” True to content marketing form, the details of the methodology are not disclosed.

Who among the thousands terminated via email or a Slack message are going to figure out that selling “insider information” is a good way to make money. Are those executive recruitment firms vetting their customers. Is that jewelry store in Athens on the up and up, or is it operated by a friend of everyone’s favorite leader, Vlad the Assailer. What mischief might a tech-savvy former employee undertake as a contractor on Fiverr or a disgruntled person in a coffee shop?

The write up states:

Only 24 percent of respondents to a new survey are fully confident that ex-employees no longer have access to their company’s infrastructure, while almost half of organizations are less than 50 percent confident that former employees no longer have access.

An outfit called Teleport did the study. A few other factoids which I found suggestive are:

  • … Organizations [are] using on average 5.7 different tools to manage access policy, making it complicated and time-consuming to completely shut off access.
  • “62 percent of respondents cite privacy concerns as a leading challenge when replacing passwords with biometric authentication.”
  • “55 percent point to a lack of devices capable of biometric authentication.”

Let’s assume that these data are off by 10 or 15 percent. There’s room for excitement in my opinion.

Stephen E Arnold, November 17, 2022

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