64% of Former Employees Could Still Reach Sensitive Company Data After Leaving a Job, Sagiss Managed Security Survey Finds

Companies are leaving sensitive data open to former employees as offboarding falls short

IRVING, Texas, Oct. 20, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Former employees are walking away from their jobs with more than a final paycheck. New research from Sagiss, a provider of IT and managed security services, finds that nearly two-thirds of former employees could still reach sensitive company information after their last day, from customer data to financial records and HR files. The results point to gaps in how companies close out access when people leave.

For the 2026 Sagiss Managed Security Report: Employee Offboarding, Sagiss partnered with third-party survey platform Pollfish in September 2026 to survey 1,000 U.S. adults who left a job in the past five years that involved computers or company systems. The report examines which work accounts and systems kept working after employees left and what their employers did to shut off access.

Sagiss’ findings suggest the problem lies in the offboarding process rather than the people leaving. Most former employees with lingering access found it without looking for it, and the most common reasons for using it were checking what was still there, retrieving personal files or finishing a handoff. With responsibility split among IT, HR and managers, access can stay open for weeks or months after an employee is gone.

Key findings include:

• 64% could still reach sensitive company information after leaving, including customer or client information (29%), financial records or payment systems (26%) and employee or HR records (22%).
  
  
• 79% say at least one work account, system or access point kept working after their last day, and 30% say that access lasted more than a month or still works today.
  
  
• 33% say their employer took none of the standard offboarding steps, such as collecting equipment or telling them which accounts would be shut off, and 33% say no one clearly owned shutting off their access.
  
  
• 82% of workers whose laptop, phone or other equipment was collected still had at least one account or system working afterward.
  
  
• 59% of laid-off or fired workers say their access kept working after they were told their job was ending.
  
  
• 82% of workers who left companies with fewer than 250 employees had lingering access, compared with 70% at companies with more than 1,000 employees.
  
  
• Of former employees who told their old employer their access still worked, 31% say it was still working more than a week later.
  

“Most companies treat offboarding as an HR checklist, but the real exposure is in every login a person picked up during their time there, many of which IT may not even know about,” said Travis Springer, President at Sagiss. “When no one owns that full list, access stays open by default. A forgotten account doesn’t need a disgruntled former employee to become a problem, because attackers look for exactly those credentials, and most businesses won’t know one has been used until the damage is done.”

Visit the 2026 Sagiss Managed Security Report: Employee Offboarding on the Sagiss website for the complete survey results and an employer offboarding checklist.

About Sagiss

As Dallas-Fort Worth’s first managed service provider (MSP), Sagiss was founded in 1992 to give businesses a better way to handle IT planning, maintenance and support. With origins in the accounting world, Sagiss provides a unique perspective on the critical relationship between an organization’s information technology and its bottom line. For three years in a row, Sagiss has been named to the MSPmentor® 200, an annual ranking of the world’s most progressive MSPs. For more information visit https://www.sagiss.com.

Contacts

Idea Grove, on behalf of Sagiss sagiss@ideagrove.com