The Password Only One Person Remembered

An owner told me proudly that his admin assistant “handled all the logins” — banking portal, supplier accounts, the works. Efficient, he said. One person, one point of contact.

Then she left for a new job with two weeks' notice, and it took the company almost a month to get back into three separate accounts, because nothing was written down anywhere except her own head and a sticky note she'd taken home with her by accident.

Nobody did anything wrong here either. She wasn't hoarding access out of spite — nobody ever asked her to document it, so she never had a reason to.

That's Leak #3 showing up in its most literal form. It's not always a process that's undocumented. Sometimes it's just the keys to the building.

If your most trusted employee left tomorrow with no notice, how many logins would walk out the door with them?