Terminated Employee Cost Company Hundreds Of Thousands Because Nobody Revoked Access
The Register, Thursday, September 3rd, 2026
A joiner-mover-leaver gap between HR and IT let a fired employee delete files, lock accounts and corrupt a database.
In this PWNED column war story, Yad Senapathy recounts a company of more than 1,000 employees that terminated a worker and never disabled his access. Days passed with the person off payroll but credentials still active, because HR assumed IT would act once the termination was processed while IT waited for a formal HR request.
The ex-employee logged back in and deleted files, locked other users out of their accounts and corrupted a database. Shared admin credentials, account controls and project tracking systems each granted onward access, producing a domino effect.
Damage ran to hundreds of thousands of dollars plus weeks of project delay - the lesson being unowned deprovisioning with no deadline.