Top 5 Security Risks for Small Business Owners

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You keep up with your rental insurance payments and get background checks on new hires. Unfortunately, many small business owners don’t even realize the worst ticking time bombs in their office. Properly shredding, sharing and storing documents can make the difference between a safe business and a ruined one. Here are five security risks many small business owners may be taking:

1. Failure to shred. Maybe you invested in a shredding machine. However, do you actually shred sensitive information right away? It’s easy to lose track, especially when your shredder only accepts one page at a time. Leaving papers intact with sensitive information can lead to identity theft and lawsuits.

2. DIY shredding. Some business owners do keep on top of shredding documents. However, shreds can be put back together if a criminal is determined enough. You’re still responsible for the leak of confidential information, even if it was shredded. When you take your documents to a professional shredding service, the liability is lifted from you.

3. Clinging to old school storage solutions. Very few businesses have to keep hard copy documents. Even medical offices and law firms are moving to a completely paperless environment, and you should follow suit. Cloud storage solutions are secure, make sharing and updating easy, and can be very low cost. Many small businesses don’t require anything larger than a small storage capacity. Drop off those hard copy files to a shredding service to save office space.

4. Sharing too generously. You’ve probably met someone with a penchant for cc’ing everyone on an email list. As the business owner, you need to be in control of who shares what. You can do this with cloud storage to help keep document sharing organized. Betty in marketing probably doesn’t need to know what the accounting team discussed at the last meeting.

5. Ill prepared for worst case scenarios. What if there’s a break in, fire or natural disaster? These things happen, and people are almost never prepared. If you depend on an in-office hard drive to back up files or hard copies, you’ve just lost your entire business. However, when you have cloud storage, your files are safe in a top notch security facility far away.

Many small business owners are more focused on keeping up with paperwork and abiding by state and federal regulations. However, keeping your business secure doesn’t take much effort. You can actually make life easier for you and your employees. Nix the paper. Get up to date on sharing and storage. Isn’t it about time your office protocol got a makeover?

About the Author:

Jason Knapfel manages web content for Accu NW, a Records and Information Management (RIM) company based in Gresham, Oregon. The company offers everything from secure document shredding to cloud computing services.