What's deadlier to your business than a computer virus?

The answer: A vindictive ex-employee or ex-contractor with links and passwords to log in remotely to your computer network, your web server, website, domain name provider, newsletter mailing lists, or merchant account gateway, your bank account, your Google AdSense account, or your search engine pay per click accounts.

With just a few keystrokes that unhappy ex could log in with your ID and password, and depending on their level of access, delete all the files and programs on your website, void out a day's orders, transfer money out of your bank account, run up huge bills for you on the pay-per-click networks you use, delete your customer database, and do a whole lot of other things that could disrupt your business, lose sales, and possible lose the whole business itself.

Avoid the risk by keeping a record of all the critical services each employee or contractor has access to. Be sure to indicate what password they use, the login URL, and any other critical information. Then, before you notify the employee or contractor that you'll no longer need their service, change their passwords to everything they have access to. Be sure the new passwords are difficult for them to guess, but something you will remember.

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