Did your company recently commit massive layoffs?
You’re not alone. The global economic crisis caused even huge enterprises like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon to resort to cutting down their workforce. In the last year, over 100,000 tech industry employees were fired due to the changes in the global economy.
With the effort to cut costs and improve their bottom lines, what many of those companies fail to consider is the potential backlash from disgruntled employees who have lost their jobs, and how easily those employees can vent their outrage and frustration on social media.
On the Highway to Hell
Cyabra uncovered a former Toyota employee criticizing the company on Twitter and causing harm to the brand’s reputation. This is an authentic profile, with almost 2,500 followers, but with the potential to reach a much higher exposure rate due to its regular Twitter activity and clever use of the platform to bash his former employer.
Cyabra found the profile mentioned Toyota 27 times. Before he was laid off, the mentions of Toyota were actually very positive. Following the termination of his employment, which the profile openly spoke about, the sentiment of his tweets mentioning Toyota changed drastically.
The profile took every opportunity, including sharing and responding to posts created by the official Toyota profile, to state the company is anti-union, anti-workers, and “treats their employees as disposable parts”. Those tweets reached the eyes of 6,000 profiles – more than twice the followers of the former employee’s profile.
Insider Threats Drive Down the Conversation
When we think of Insider Threats, we might imagine leaked information or stolen data. But Insider Threats also refer to disgruntled or radicalized employees who can cause damage even to the reputation of huge enterprises. Former workers don’t stop being an insider threat when they’re out of your organization – if anything, they now have fewer restraints about harming the company, and more time to do so.
Don’t ignore insider threats. Negative content spread on social media by disgruntled employees can easily grow and snowball out of control, and this damage to a company’s reputation can be difficult to shake off. Contact Cyabra now to identify, uncover and stop insider threats to your company.
