Fired KiranaPro Staff Deleted Entire Code & Data: A Cautionary Tale of Poor Employee Offboarding
In a shocking turn of events, KiranaPro, a startup that provides an e-commerce platform for small retailers, found itself in a week of chaos after its fired staff deleted the entire code and data of the company. The incident has raised concerns about the importance of proper employee offboarding procedures, especially in startups that may not have a full-time HR team.
According to an interview with CEO Deepak Ravindran and CTO Saurav Kumar with TechCrunch, the ex-employee, who was responsible for the deletion, still had access to KiranaPro credentials due to the lack of a full-time HR team to handle employee offboarding procedures properly. This allowed the fired employee to use their credentials to delete the company’s code and data, causing significant disruption to the business.
The incident began when the employee was let go by KiranaPro, but instead of canceling their access to the company’s systems, the employee continued to use their credentials to delete the code and data. The exact motive behind the employee’s actions is still unclear, but the consequences have been severe.
“The employee’s access was not revoked, and they used the credentials to delete the code and data,” Ravindran told TechCrunch. “We were in a state of panic, trying to figure out what had happened.”
The deletion of the code and data has caused significant delays in the payment of salaries to the remaining employees, which is a major concern for the company. “We had to delay salaries because we had no way of tracking who was eligible for payment,” Ravindran explained.
The incident has also raised concerns about the security of KiranaPro’s data and the potential risks of having an ex-employee with continued access to company systems. “We had no idea that the employee still had access,” Kumar said. “We’ve been taking steps to ensure that this doesn’t happen again, but it’s a wake-up call for us to review our employee offboarding procedures.”
The lack of a full-time HR team at KiranaPro is often cited as the reason for the employee’s continued access. In many startups, HR tasks are handled by other employees or outsourced to third-party providers, which can lead to gaps in employee offboarding procedures.
“This incident highlights the importance of having a dedicated HR team to handle employee offboarding,” said a human resources expert. “Startups need to prioritize this aspect of their operations to avoid similar incidents in the future.”
In the aftermath of the incident, KiranaPro has taken steps to revamp its employee offboarding procedures, including the implementation of a more robust system for canceling access to company systems.
“We’re learning from this experience and taking steps to prevent it from happening again,” Ravindran said. “We’re also re-evaluating our security protocols to ensure that our data is protected.”
The incident serves as a cautionary tale for startups and small businesses to prioritize employee offboarding procedures, even if it means hiring a dedicated HR team. The consequences of not doing so can be severe, as seen in the case of KiranaPro.
