Given all the talk about cyber security, it’s easy to forget that businesses have faced the risk of data breaches years before the internet even existed. Today, keeping sensitive information stored in tangible form on the premises still poses a risk.

If your business is looking to proactively dodge the possibility of a data breach, today’s professional shredding companies make it easier than ever.

Mobile Paper Shredding Services

 
Ignore the way Hollywood movies make it seem like companies only hire shredders to get rid of evidence, as if they have something to hide. Realistically, companies generate all kinds of sensitive material in the course of doing business.

For example, they may have sensitive information about customers which can’t be made public, and the laws surrounding the Personal Health Information Act make preserving the sensitive health records of the public a legal obligation. If a business rival were to get their hands on old contracts, business documents containing trade secrets, or other kinds of sensitive material, they could use them to undermine their business tactics, or even for blackmail.

It’s easy to hire an industry leader like Absolute Destruction to come straight to your office and eliminate your paper documents right there, with their mobile shredding truck. Like many industries, today’s professional paper shredders also offer door-to-door services, so you don’t need to plan out the logistics of how to carry so many heavy, secretive documents.

For larger volumes of paper to be shredded, the best professionals will still come right to your premises, but they’ll carry your sensitive documents to their facilities for secure shredding.

Destroying Electronics

 
Apart from the risks of a data breach posed by paper documents and online cyber security threats is another type of danger: information stored on electronic devices. We might immediately think of electronics which are meant to store data — such as smartphones, computers, laptops, and hard drives — when we think of electronic threats.

But other electronics pose a risk too, like photocopier or printer memory cards, back-up tapes and drives, and others. If there are old electronic devices no longer in use, the safest course of action to prevent a data breach is have them shredded professionally.

They can’t just be thrown into the garbage: it’s essential that the microchips on them are shredded to the point where the data on them cannot possibly be retrieved.
 

Specialty Destruction Services

 
Finally, sometimes sensitive information is stored in different, unusual forms. It could be packaging, X-rays, pharmaceutical packaging, dental records — every industry has its own vulnerabilities.

Whatever they are, they can be safely and totally destroyed so that you know they no longer present any liability for a data breach.

People are correct to proactively safeguard their sensitive data; whether it’s to avert a cyber attack or old-fashioned dumpster diving for material to fuel corporate espionage, there is a real risk that your sensitive data could fall into the wrong hands if you’re not careful. Hiring a professional shredder to purge your office is the best way to eliminate this possibility entirely.