Terminated employee cost company hundreds of thousands of dollars because nobody revoked access

A company failed to revoke a terminated employee's credentials, enabling the ex-worker to delete files, lock accounts, and corrupt a database; the resulting damage cost the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars and delayed key projects. The report highlights procedural gaps in offboarding, unclear responsibilities between HR and IT, over-reliance on single administrators, and recommends immediate access removal, access reviews, and stronger controls around shared/admin credentials.