Fired from job - left my Gmail, Stack Exchange, LinkedIn, and other personally owned accounts logged in. How do I proceed?

Question

I left my company on bad terms yesterday. I was ordered to leave immediately, take my documents, never come back to the company, and even to never meet my boss in life outside work.

The problem is that when I left the company, I forgot to log out of my Gmail, Stack Exchange network accounts, LinkedIn, work email and many other personal and professional accounts. The browsers remember almost all of my personal passwords.

Obviously, they will check my computer to get information about the project and it will be used by others (most probably by the manager of R&D department who is a very unethical person, interested in personal information about the others).

What is the best thing I can do about the problem?

Answer 1

Go online and change all the passwords now for your personal accounts.

Obviously the OP no longer has access to the work machine, so this means either using a machine at home or even going to an internet cafe or equivalent to log in to all accounts as necessary and change passwords.

Work associated accounts like work email they will be able to, and have the right to, access anyway - even if you change the password they can use administrator rights.

Answer 2

Specifically Gmail you can log out remotely: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/8154

Sign out from another computer If you forgot to sign out of your email on another computer, you can remotely sign out of Gmail.

Open Gmail. In the bottom right corner, click Details and then Sign out all other web sessions. Tip: If you’re using a public or shared computer, sign out of your Google Account before leaving the computer. Learn more about signing in securely to Google.

And you might be able to see if anyone acceses it after you left: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/45938?hl=en

Answer 3

The browsers remember almost all of my personal passwords

in future, do not do that.

And only ever use private mode browsing at work, so as not to leave a history. Personally, I only ever visit Stack Overflow on my work PC, in private mode, and check my email at lunchtime on my 'phone. Doing otherwise might get you sacked at some places (and using LinkedIn at work is unlikely to ever give a good impression).

I Like @SolarMike's answer of changing all passwords & Geegory's comment about "log me out from other devices" - where offered.

Since you get on well with your boss, you could also call him and ask him to wipe all browser history & passwords, then reboot, to catch those sites which won't time out and where you can't remote log out.

And you probably should change all passwords, no matter how much you trust your boss. Just standard operational procedure (like never remembering them on a work PC in the first place).

Answer 4

You should certainly change your passwords, but on most corporate setups accessing your personal accounts would take deliberate action bordering on malice, and assistance from IT staff. malice I assume you were logged on to your own user account, as is normal practice. This means that your browser history/saved logins can only be accessed by someone logged on to the same account, which means a malicious ex-colleague can't simply walk up to the machine and impersonate you.

However IT can reset your password and may have a legitimate reason to do so to get access to stuff you were working on. This reset logon can then be used to access your browser records. So who would need access to your files? How much do you trust them? How quickly will IT respond to a request for access? This determines how worried you need to be.

Answer 5

I forgot to log out of my gmail, stack exchange network accounts, LinkedIn, work email and many other personal and professional accounts

Generally speaking, you would not have been allowed access to the computer, which means you would not have been able to log out even if you had remembered.
Under such conditions, someone should have accompanied you back to your desk ad assisted you with removing your personal belongings.

and even to never meet my boss in life outside work.

Pretty sure that's not enforceable...

Answer 6

Logout all active session , By changing password.

Answer 7

I realise this is no help to the OP now, but in case this is useful to anyone else having to leave behind a PC:

'Boot and Nuke' is a bootable image that secure wipes all harddrives on a PC:

https://dban.org/

Burn it to a USB or disc, boot, confirm, and it'll start secure wiping the drives. Realistically, you can leave the PC after a few minutes as (assuming a typical file system) the MTF will be overwritten almost immediately, which means it's already a forensics job to get useful data off the HD. Once it's completed one wipe, it'll require a specialist lab.

For SSD-based machines, DBAN may not be effective (but will almost certainly prevent casual efforts to retrieve data). https://partedmagic.com/secure-erase/ provides a secure erase with SSDs, or there's various SSD manufacturer tools which trigger an SSD secure erase command.

Note that in a work environment your files may have been backed up to the network and off-site, so you may not be able to delete them. Companies probably shouldn't be backing up personal data deliberately, but many companies don't do backups properly, or if you've not been given permission to use a machine for personal use they may not exclude personal folders. Obviously if you've got a laptop and they've taken a full image as a backup, then that will include personal data.

WARNING

OBVIOUSLY, only do this if you both have the right to wipe a machine, and you're confident that any company data is stored elsewhere. At any responsible company, it should be, because all company data should be mirrored on the network and backed up (or else it'd be lost in the event of a hard drive failure), but not all companies store data responsibly.

Policies on wiping machines and business practices on storing company data centrally vary between companies and industries.

Answer 8

I have just retired and sold my manufacturing company. I have owned the company all but 2 years when I tried working for the man.

I am in the USA, in Tennessee. This is based on legal advice, updated over the years.

I can fire you for cause or no cause at all and with no warning at all. You work for the pleasure of the company.

I don't advise anyone to put personal data on a company-owned computer.

If you try to delete or wipe the company machine remotely, you have committed a computer crime, specifically theft or destruction of company property. The company has to right to examine all the data on the company computer and linked accounts, personal or otherwise, to make sure no trade secrets or other IP was being stored or transmitted using your "personal" accounts. I've worked with the district attorney and prosecuted two employees who tried remote (or local, in the case the employee is given a short notice of his pending discharge) wiping. both were indicted by the Grand Jury and both were convicted. One is still in prison.

You can and probably will be forced by the judge to reveal the new passwords on accounts you've changed remotely.

My advice is to back away from this, do nothing and learn your lesson.

My second advice is if you want to converse personal data at work (an ethically dubious practice), use a phone or tablet and do NOT use the company's WiFi. Use your cell company account. In many states including Tennessee, Any data you transmit over the company Wifi the company has the right to examine for IP violations.

many companies, including mine, will not allow personal computing devices in the work spaces where IP is developed or manipulated. I provide locker space where the employee can lock up his personal data device for the duration of the work shift. Even with those companies without specific controls, conduct of personal business is theft of your employee's time and THAT can be prosecuted.

Having an allegedly pending emergency is no excuse. Instruct the hospital or whatever to contact the switchboard which can contact you.

Each new-hire gets a spiral-book on personal IT business. It is stated at the beginning of the document in large letters that the first offense is an on-the-spot firing offense. The ex-employee is escorted to his car by security. A designated employee separates out personal items such as photographs and so on from company property and puts the personal property in boxes. The fired employee can make an appointment to pick up his personal property. He is escorted at all times he is on the company property.

This may seem harsh. I used to have as liberal rules on personal computing devices as most companies - until I lost a patent fight because an employee had been sending our IP to a competitor, after which he took a job with them. This was before the toughened IP protection laws. I had him prosecuted for theft of IP but I didn't get my patent.

My IP attorneys and I sat down and formulated this policy. Our policy manual suggests that if an employee has to conduct personal internet business, he go to his car and do it.

We bend over backward to keep our employees happy and satisfied with their work environment and turn-over is very low. But we are hard-asses about personal computing and that is explicitly laid out in the manual each employee gets. Turn-over is very low, almost non-existent.

Millennials tend to have the attitude that all that is necessary to do something is to want. I try to hire older, more experienced people but when HR sends me an occasional Millennial, I sit him down in my office and we have a lesson on rules compliance and ethical behavior. For most, this is a whole new experience, having neither their parents, their school and of course not their church which few attend have taught them the basic things my parents (The Greatest Generation), my school and my church taught me. One definition of moral behavior is doing the right thing when nobody's watching.

In summary, do nothing about this incident, suffer any adverse consequences from having personal data on your work computer and learn a lesson in basic morals.

John