Your Business: Tips for keeping you, your business and your clients secure.
You should not be throwing away everything into the rubbish bin. The risks are too high and it is now too easy to protect yourself.
Prevention is always better than a cure. Deal with the problem at the source rather than worrying about patching up the holes once a breach has occurred. It only takes 1 breach for your company’s reputation to be ruined.
Letting confidential documents lie around in recycling bins is a huge risk. Recycling
bins are not locked and are therefore exposed to passing traffic such as unauthorised
staff, neighbours, cleaners, even day/night security patrols.
When it comes to business or personal records, many of us are simply too relaxed about how we get rid of them when they are no longer needed. Many throw them into the normal rubbish or attempt to shred themselves.
As a business, customers entrust you with their personal information on a daily basis. As such, knowing exactly what to do with your information and when is important.
When dealing with information security, education is key. Ensure all employees understand the importance of information security. Everyone in your business should also know what documentation/data/information should be properly disposed of when no longer needed.
Here is a brief (non-exhaustive) list of items that should be securely shredded. Note: If you are unsure whether something should be shredded or not, you should do it anyway. Seemingly harmless documents/bills/emails can contain just enough information for someone to do some real harm to your business and client’s reputation).
- Invoices/Receipts
- Quotes/Proposals
- Emails
- Contracts/Legal Documentation
- Employment Records
- Tax Returns
- Business Plans
- Resumes
Remember, your customers are relying on you to handle their information properly.
In turn, you are relying on your employees to make a decision on what to dispose and when. That can be dangerous. Ideally, you should have a strict policy in place so there is no human error factor involved in deciding what to do with certain documents.
What goes in the rubbish? What goes in the shredding bin?
Ensure you have a shred-all policy. Don’t leave it up to employees to decide what is important to your business!