Monitor for Layoff Chatter about Your Organization and All Third-Parties
"Risk is like fire: if controlled, it will help us; if uncontrolled, it will rise up and destroy us." - Theodore Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th president of the United States. During his presidency, the world was tumultuous, marked by The Spanish-American War, the Russo-Japanese War, and several industrialized countries looking to expand their borders through military might. President Roosevelt was known for his warrior persona, often taking aggressive positions toward potential global conflicts. In other words, he knew the risks and came prepared. (See Roosevelt's Great White Fleet).
Today most people do not have a modern navy to parade around the world to ward off conflict. But we have publically available data and internet access to help us understand risk, and we can gain knowledge and intelligently prepare for potential threats in this digital space.
One of the spaces that ThreatNG highlights is "layoff chatter." Layoff chatter is an excellent source when looking for non-technical business-related risks. The information within this layoff chatter can reveal part of the inner workings of an organization and employee sentiment.
Reviewing the layoff chatter about an organization can show non-technical risks the organization may face. Layoff chatter can often have details about management strategy and how employees at the organization feel about how things are going working at the company. Employees may view this chatter and influence them not to apply to open roles, which can cause issues with employment numbers, satisfaction, and overall happiness. This chatter can also include rumors that may have leaked or speculation based on employee attitude and sentiment. Management should review this and dispel them if possible and ensure that if there are layoffs, they are on a need-to-know and have proper security measures in place.
Layoff chatter should be taken seriously and be addressed in both a technical and non-technical way, as it poses a significant risk to an organization. Upon identification of layoff chatter, organizations should do the following:
Ensure all employees acknowledge and understand the acceptable use policy for work devices, intellectual property, and trade-secret specifics.
Dispel the rumors if identified as such.
Data leakage may arise from the fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) that a layoff may bring. Organizations should validate if technologies like data leak prevention (DLP) or cloud access security broker (CASB) solutions are in place to manage layoff-associated risks. They should also ensure if there is an insider threat program to address any possible data leaks.
ThreatNG empowers you with the "Sentiment & Financials" investigation module that discovers and reports on layoff chatter, negative news, lawsuits, public company filings, and private company funding information and correlates the findings with technical, strategic, operational, and financial digital risks.
Give us a call today to explore more of our "Sentiment & Financials" investigation module, along with the nine other essential digital risk protection and external attack surface areas that ThreatNG empowers you to discover, assess, and manage.
