The first thing that comes to your mind about shredding is probably shredded wheat cereal. But, have you recently thought about shredding in your business or life? Shredding documents that is. There has been an outbreak of numerous stories and even movies and news specials on identity theft and big items being purchased with other people’s money.
Whether you’re a business or individual worrying about your safety, owning and actively using an electronic document shredder can save you thousands of dollars in the long run. Have you ever left your bank statement or electric bill on the counter and never thought twice about it? What if a criminal stole those documents and ultimately used them to activate expensive internet in your name? What you feel bothered to pay hundreds of dollars for a service you don’t even use?
In a business, a lot of sensitive information gets passed around ranging from customer’s contact details to employee’s social security numbers.
The Rise of Identity Theft
Identity theft is becoming popular as it becomes easier for skilled criminals to steal your sensitive information. They go through great lengths including diving in the dumpster, breaking and entering, hacking ecommerce websites, bribing companies that hold your information, and more. That plumber that you just hired to come and fix your sink while you’re gone may really be after your mail and other important documents.
There is also a tremendous rise of cybercrime on ecommerce websites. A customer inputs their credit card or PayPal and personal contact information and when a criminal hacks into your website, they have access to all of this data.
There are many of careless victims that take no precautions to protect their information and end up in serious debt.
What to Protect
For individuals: Household items that you may not think of can be easily stolen and used for identity theft. These items include but are not limited to bills, bank statements, receipts, old credit cards, apartment leases, house mortgage information, and credit card applications.
For businesses: Businesses are more at risk than individuals when it comes to security breaches and can suffer from far worst damage. There’s a long list of documents including employee applications, customer financial information, social security numbers, and more.
If you’re unsure if a document contains sensitive information or not, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Don’t take any chances and destroy business and personal papers that cause any suspicions.
How to Protect
The best to way to protect physical documents that can’t end up in the wrong hands is to properly destroy them. Electronic document shredding machines are effective in making sure any documents that pass through are unreadable after. Shredding documents eliminate risk of identity theft, security breaches, lawsuits, and bad reputation. Before throwing that old, unused credit card away, think first. Even bulkier items such as credit cards and CD’s can be destroyed with a shredder. For extra security and protection, you can opt in for a professional document shredding company.
When shredding just doesn’t cut it and you still feel your information has a chance to be stolen, burning will make sure all of the items are completely destroyed and turned into ashes.
Throwing away your personal and financial documents just isn’t enough anymore,shredding is the way to go. Anything that draws suspicion or even has the tiniest bit of sensitive information needs to be disposed of.
