--- title: Ghosts of Past Employees | daily.dev description: Using Halloween as a metaphor, this piece discusses the security risks posed by former employees' lingering access credentials, such as old kubeconfigs or SSH... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/ghosts-of-past-employees-7kapqvbf2 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Ghosts of Past Employees | daily.dev og:description: Using Halloween as a metaphor, this piece discusses the security risks posed by former employees' lingering access credentials, such as old kubeconfigs or SSH... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/ghosts-of-past-employees-7kapqvbf2 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/7kApqvBf2.png og:image:alt: Ghosts of Past Employees og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Ghosts of Past Employees **[Teleport](https://daily.dev/sources/teleport)** · 4 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Using Halloween as a metaphor, this piece discusses the security risks posed by former employees' lingering access credentials, such as old kubeconfigs or SSH public keys left on servers. It argues for short-lived credentials (8 hours to a week) sourced from a central identity provider to ensure access is properly revoked when employees leave, and briefly promotes Teleport's free and open source edition as a solution. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Why short-lived systems need stronger identity governance](https://daily.dev/posts/why-short-lived-systems-need-stronger-identity-governance-2mp3kjrvi) · CSO Online · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Dormant Accounts Leave Manufacturing Orgs Open to Attack](https://daily.dev/posts/dormant-accounts-leave-manufacturing-orgs-open-to-attack-qf0quuqzr) · Security Boulevard · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The AWS Keys in Your Dotfiles](https://daily.dev/posts/the-aws-keys-in-your-dotfiles-xcqz2rkd0) · strongdm · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/ghosts-of-past-employees-7kapqvbf2) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Ghosts of Past Employees","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/ghosts-of-past-employees-7kapqvbf2","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ghosts-of-past-employees-7kapqvbf2"},"datePublished":"2026-08-23T12:19:06.940Z","dateModified":"2026-08-23T12:34:54.680Z","description":"Using Halloween as a metaphor, this piece discusses the security risks posed by former employees' lingering access credentials, such as old kubeconfigs or SSH...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--1KxV4ohY--/f_auto/v1722860400/public/Placeholder%2007","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--1KxV4ohY--/f_auto/v1722860400/public/Placeholder%2007","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Teleport","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Teleport","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--Dw-Bbw6O--/c_limit,w_256/f_auto,q_auto/v1787487494/logos/teleport?_a=BAMAMicg0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/teleport"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/ghosts-of-past-employees-7kapqvbf2","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"","timeRequired":"PT4M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Teleport","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/teleport"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Ghosts of Past Employees"}]} ```