Dealing With the Insider Threat and Unscrupulous Competitors – How Mobile Document Shredding Services in Georgia Can Help (Part One of a Three Part Series)

In our last installment series, we discussed in detail the process used by a criminal bent on using your trash to steal someone’s identity and how mobile document shredding services in Georgia can help prevent such crimes.  In today’s post (this time a three-parter), we will be discussing the threat posed from the inside of your company and the threat posed by some of your more unethical competitors.  By examining these kinds of threats in detail, you will be more able to plan an effective document management strategy with your mobile document shredding service in GA.

No business owner or manager likes to face this fact, but oftentimes the greatest threat to your company’s security comes from inside of it – from your employees.  No lock in the world will protect your valuables if you or one of your employees forgets to engage it.  Technology, of course, is a huge help to your overall security program.  Today, in a relatively cost effective manner, you can place video cameras throughout your office spaces, utilize basic cyber security for your network and workstations and install a plethora of physical security measures such as locks and fencing.  In regards to disposing of your sensitive document waste, the technology utilized by reputable mobile document shredding services in Georgia will ensure that your confidential materials will be fully and completely destroyed.  Preventing human error by one of your employees, however, or worse, an attempt by one of your employees to steal from you is tremendously difficult.  When it comes to the human factor, technology is often of little help.

In regards to misuse of your document waste, the insider human threat comes in two basic forms – human error and malicious intent.  Fortunately, a reputable mobile document shredding service in Georgia can help mitigate the risks from both types.

The Human Error Factor…

Let’s assume for a moment that you’ve already hired a mobile document shredding service in Georgia.  You’ve set up an effective shredding schedule that meets your paper flow needs and the mobile document shredding company in Georgia has placed locked storage bins strategically throughout your office spaces to make it as easy as possible for your workers to dispose of their sensitive paper waste.  You’ve taken the valuable time to train your employees as to what kind of documents in your business should be considered confidential or sensitive and you’ve made sure to utilize the best practice of monthly or quarterly refresher training.  In short, you’re doing a lot of things the right way.  One day, however, one of your employees takes a stack of customers’ personal information that is meant to be shredded and places it on top of another stack of scrap papers meant for the regular trash.  Interrupted, he takes a call and after resuming his task to drop the papers in the locked shredding bins from the mobile document shredding company, accidentally leaves some of customers’ information in the pile to be thrown in the trash.  In an instant, a minor accident has created a potentially large liability for your business.  The employee was well trained and just made a simple human error, but had the company adopted a 100% shredding policy with the mobile document shredding service in Georgia, this mistake could have been averted.  With a 100% shredding policy, ALL paper is placed in the locked storage businesses, leaving far less to chance and that pesky human error factor.  Of course, it may raise some of your shredding costs since your paper flow has increased, but that expense is more than worth the cost considering the risk involved.

In our next installment, we’ll discuss the insider threat from a disgruntled employee and how a mobile document shredding service in GA can help mitigate that risk as well.