Professional Destruction Services to Protect Information Security

Information security is a hot topic with a data breach occurring on an almost weekly basis. If you handle any personally identifiable information (PII) in your company, this issue should be at the forefront of your security planning. Not only could you suffer from direct financial consequences if a security breach were to occur, but you will also lose confidence from your customers. Securing your data should be a top priority, and the expenditures needed to protect yourself are worth it.

Training Costs
The single weakest point of any information system is the human using it. Thankfully, information security training programs and testing your employee’s IT knowledge against a hacker after data, is relatively cheap. Professional penetration testing companies can be contracted out if your company deals with highly sensitivity information. Policies and best practices can also be set in place to prevent the leak or breach of personal data, such as requiring a “clean desk policy” where employee’s ensure their desks have nothing on them at the end of the day. In general, this is a great first step, before you start buying hardware, to securing company data and information security.

Hardware/Software
Firewalls and VPNs into your company’s intranet are rrelatively cheap and easy to set up, or can easily be installed by a contracted service. Keeping your company IT assets regularly patched with the latest updates, behind a couple of firewalls, and with the option of a VPN are all simple ways to decrease your attack footprint and use a small fraction of your company’s profits.

Services
At the advent of the personal computer, it was theorized that we would never use paper again. Quite the opposite is true, and along with that comes more sensitive information spread far and wide. Even if a file isn’t run through a printer, the data still persists on the hard drive it was saved on. It takes a very small amount of skill to be able to piece back together sensitive information on a hard drive even after you thought you deleted it or wiped it clean. Hiring a service, such as PROSHRED® Northern Virginia, can eliminate all but the insider threat in regards to your company and customer data’s confidentiality being compromised. PROSHRED® Northern Virginia offers one time, drop off, and ongoing shredding services, with industry standard cross cutting to ensure an attacker will never see your privileged data. Furthermore, PROSHRED® Northern Virginia offers hard drive and destruction degassing, a method approved by the NSA to completely obliterate any information persisting on your hard drive.

Cost of a Breach
Depending on the nature of your company, you can suffer moderate to irreparable damages if you don’t maintain a high degree of information security. If a customer’s financial information is compromised, this can be sold to anyone with anything from unauthorized purchases to total identity theft with the customer’s credit score destroyed. A loss in confidence from your customers after a data breach may prevent future business growth and a loss of your current customer base. The price of a data breach is immeasurable, while the cost of prevention is low and can be outsourced to contracted services.

Request a free quote from PROSHRED® Northern Virginia today and add a level of security that will help ensure your Northern Virginia business is protected from the risk of compromised data. Fill out our free quote form above or call our Northern Virginia office at (571) 229-5734 and speak with a secure shredding specialist today.