3 Ways to Protect Your Business From Disaster

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Security has traditionally been overlooked in business planning. In fact, as of a 2020 risk assessment, 73% of security budgets are either staying the same or being reduced in the coming year. It’s easy to get complacent about the security of your business if nothing happens. You might feel you’re being overly paranoid, or that you’re worrying for no reason. As tempting as it is to slide into this sense of false contentment, you’ll only set yourself up for a rude awakening when your first data breach occurs.

Being proactive about the safety and security of your business is one of the best ways to make sure that you’re covered if and when something does happen. However, good business security goes well beyond setting up a firewall on the office internet.

1. Don’t Automatically Assume Your Vendors are Secure

If you partner with a supplier, vendor, or other company to ensure the smooth operation of your own business, do your due diligence about their own security standards. Ask how they treat and store your information, even after they’re done using it. Are documents securely shredded by a certified provider? Are their digital and cloud storage systems well-protected against hacking attempts?

If the answer to any of these questions is no, you’ll need to evaluate the potential cost of a data breach from one of these sources. Given that the average cost of a data breach in 2019 was around $200,000, you may want to consider either restricting the information you provide or finding another vendor altogether.

2. Make Sure You’re Protected Against Cyberattacks

As important as it is for your partners to maintain good physical and digital security, the same applies to you and your business. If your office WiFi isn’t password-protected, and if there are no firewalls or antivirus software on your office computers, you’re inviting trouble.

Always use two-factor authentication when you can, and make sure to change passwords regularly. You should also make sure that there’s an office rule to not share any business-related information on social media. Hackers are increasingly making use of seemingly-innocuous details to create a plausible-sounding excuse to get private company information.

3. Protect Your In-Office & Home Office Documents

Digital security is vital for modern business, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t address the security risks presented by improperly disposed documents. Papers can hold account numbers, credit card details, medical history, and private intellectual property, which means that if even one is stolen or lost, it can open the door to a massive data breach. This means that every unattended document – from those in the trash can to those in the open-air recycling bin – presents a risk to your company.

The good news is that solving this particular problem is fairly simple. A simple restructuring of document disposal protocol is usually all you need, and a professional scheduled shredding company will provide you with everything you need to implement this new system. Locking containers can be placed throughout your workspace specifically for the collection of private documents.

Because of the locking mechanism, documents cannot be retrieved by any unauthorized personnel once they’ve been dropped into the containers. The shredding company will routinely shred your papers into cross-cut pieces that cannot be put back together, ensuring that your information is permanently protected.

Protect Your Business With Scheduled Shredding

A-1 Arizona provides secure, 100% compliant scheduled shredding services to businesses throughout the state of Arizona. We’re committed to providing you with the shredding that actually meets your needs, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach to service. Every piece of paper we process is securely recycled, and we also provide e-media destruction services to help protect your digital data.

For more information on our scheduled shredding services throughout Arizona, give us a call at (602) 759-5103. You can also request a free quote for our scheduled shredding online.

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