You don’t need to read a newspaper for very long to find yet another story about how a major corporation or even a political party became the victim of a hacker. While these kinds of stories get the bulk of the media attention, smaller businesses can be more attractive targets for hackers because they have fewer resources to spend on security.
There is only one way for private individuals and small businesses to be sure that the sensitive data in their possession no longer poses any potential security risk — call professional shredders to have it destroyed. Read on to learn more about the services they provide.
Paper Shredding
The trend of offices going paper-free is a positive step for the environment. But realistically, many of these offices still wind up creating paper documents, or have old accumulations of it lying around. Whether you have a lot of paper or only a little, professional shredders make disposing of it easy.
The list of paper documents that all businesses generate which contain potentially sensitive information include: legal documents, blueprints, architectural designs, tax filings, business contracts, employee details, payroll information, marketing material, business plans, presentations, agreements, HR documents, and more.
There are those like industry leader Absolute Destruction & Recycling which have their own mobile paper shredding truck, so they can pull right up to your home or office and get the job done. For bigger jobs, they should have a truck that securely transports your sensitive documents to their facility, where they will be shredded.
Expect the company to give you a certificate of destruction after the job has been completed, a testament that the sensitive documents you gave to them no longer pose any potential security risk.
Electronic Shredding
Many people associate shredding with the shredding of paper documents, but so much information is stored on electronic devices these days, and all forms of sensitive data need to be totally destroyed. The list of devices that professional shedders get called on to destroy include: hard drives, flash drives, USBs, back-up tapes and drives, laptops, tablets, cell phones, photocopier and printer memory cards, data tapes, and more.
These devices can’t simply be thrown into the garbage: the microchips need to be shredded to the point where the data on them cannot possibly be recovered or retrieved. Only then have they been safely shredded.
Finally, it’s important that professional shredders do everything possible to recycle the materials where possible. Whether it is paper or electronic components being recycled, the need to reduce our carbon footprint cannot be overstated. Companies dealing with recyclable material need to be able to prove that they’re serious about being environmentally friendly.
In this day and age with so many prominent security breaches, it’s impossible to keep your cards too close to your chest. You don’t want to be in the news for the wrong reasons! Whether you have paper or electronic documents to get rid of, call a professional shredders and reduce the number of potential liabilities in your home or office today.