Why do former employees still have active logins?
IT departments often lack timely communication from HR regarding departure dates, leaving accounts active long after employees leave. This breakdown in the offboarding process leaves systems exposed to former staff retaining access for months or even years.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Relying on manual offboarding checklists
- 2Using single sign-on (SSO) for immediate suspension when deactivated
- 3Auditing onboarding and offboarding processes upon starting a new management position
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“The amount of times I've seen a former coworker's login still active months after they left is genuinely terrifying”source ↗
“how do you know HR is promptly informing you of the roll-off date so you can start the process? And I was like… great. How do you know HR is promptly informing you of the roll-off date so you can start the process? And I was like… great.”source ↗
“Rumor has it my credentials are still marked as active at somewhere i havent been at in about 3 years.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 5How to use AI for accounting without breaking client confidentiality
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- 2How to open old Microsoft Publisher .pub files
- 4Locked out of new network switches because the consultant left
- 3Why do CRM apps share my customer data with other companies?
- 3Why does security software lock out the entire organization?