If you are making people redundant – in these credit crunch influenced, potentially recessionary times – you should exercise extreme caution when it comes to dismissing your IT staff.

Identity management specialist firm Cyber-Ark has surveyed 300 IT security professionals and found that 88 per cent of IT administrators, if laid off tomorrow, would steal valuable and sensitive company information. The target information includes the CEOs’ passwords, the customer database, R & D plans, financial reports, M & A plans and the company’s list of privileged passwords which provide the keys to unlock access to every piece of information that’s on the network.

“Most company directors are unaware of the passwords to which their IT guys have access and which allows them to see everything that is going on within the company,” said Cyber-Ark’s Udi Mokady. “These privileged identities rarely get changed as it’s often considered too much hassle. When people leave the organisation, they can still access the network using these passwords to acquire an organisation’s most sensitive information.”

Comment: So that techie’s redundancy package might just be more generous than you think.