Gilmore Blog https://www.gilmoreservices.com/blog

All employees who have access to confidential organizational data or private client or employee information have a responsibility to keep their computers secure, but employees who work remotely face additional risks and challenges. When working remotely, employees are more likely to use their computer for personal reasons, leave their computer unlocked and unattended, and connect to unsecured networks. Protecting confidential information when working from home can keep your organization, coworkers, and customers safe from the threat of identity theft. These tips and tricks can help.

If you're considering moving in Northwest Florida you need to make sure you're working with the right company. Fortunately you can get a good idea of what you're looking for by knowing what a quality moving company should provide. You don't want to get stuck moving along Gulf Coast areas with a company that doesn't have your best interests in mind. 

Data encryption is the process of making digital files and emails unreadable by anyone who does not have the key. It keeps your data away from prying eyes, identity thieves and hackers. If you were to try to read an encrypted file without the key, it would be a mess of jumbled letters and / or numbers. An example of data encryption is online banking. When you pull up your bank account, you access the data through 128-bit encryption. Thus, only you can see your bank account information.

Many businesses and government agencies have schedules for record retention and disposal. Certain types of records are kept longer while others are kept for a shorter time. But the actual disposal of records should have specific procedures, especially if they contain personally identifiable information (PII).

When disaster strikes you need to know that your business operations will continue to run smoothly and your information systems won’t be completely uprooted. A document disaster recovery plan will help to minimize disruption to the normal operations of your business while preventing or limiting the extent of damage.

Gilmore recently provided trucks for annual shredding events in Pensacola, FL, and Mobile, AL. Designed to help people cut down on the odds of identity theft, the two events drew in 2,622 drop-offs and 89,000 pounds of document destruction. 

As technology has become essential to the business world and life in general, we often hear about data breaches and how it has completely destroyed a lot of companies and compromised sensitive information. 

When your hard drive quits or storage drive becomes null-and-void, it’s easy to just pile all of it up in a corner or back room. You promise to attend to it later, but you never really get around to it. Or worse, you toss it in the trash as-is so you never have to look at it again. Maybe you wipe it first, or maybe you just hope that the password protection will be enough. However, consider what’s on a busted piece of technology. What kind of password lists or files are waiting to be discovered by a criminal who considers themselves the Indiana Jones of identity theft? We’ll look at why you should shred your old tech and who can help you out when you don’t know what to do with all your old devices. 

Another year of tax season is here and you may be wondering what to with old tax returns. The truth is, it depends. There are different timelines assigned to certain documents that may require you to keep your tax returns and supporting information longer than normal recommendations. Once you have spoken to someone with authority who can provide sound recommendations, that’s when you move forward.

Identity theft is a draw for criminals, one that allows them to wreak havoc on people’s lives while being shrouded in secrecy. When tax season pops up, the stakes get even higher. All the information, from your Social Security number to your transcript, is often relatively easy to both intercept and capitalize on. The best thing for anyone to do right now is to be aware of how criminals function and who they target — because it’s not always the wealthiest people. In fact, it’s more likely to be an everyday person who just got a little careless about security. 

Using a company for RIM services significantly decreases the risk of losing important information. You not only know where all of your business records are but they are also kept safe from prying eyes. And, when combined with a retention schedule, your business records won't ever take over digital or physical storage.

Dealing with inclement weather any time of year can be hectic, but knowing how to protect paper from weather conditions that can affect your operations is critical. Businesses that use document storage methods to keep paper records intact face an uphill battle, especially because certain conditions can damage those documents. Too much moisture, too much heat, and water damage are all factors to consider.

Many organizations utilize commercial document storage centers to maintain their paper or digital records for the recommended or required retention period. For paper records, this can clear up much-needed real estate in your brick-and-mortar office, keep files organized for easier access, and take the burden of tracking destruction dates and maintaining archived records off your plate. For digital records, this gives you access to expensive scanning and storage software, allowing you to customize the structure to meet your needs. For both, it ensures your document storage services meet the stringent security standards set by government agencies and other regulatory bodies in your industry.

Most Americans have paper waste at home that would pose a risk if disposed of in the garbage can, like bank statements, tax returns that are beyond their retention period, loan applications, and more. Any document that contains your date of birth, social security number, passwords, signatures, bank account number, or credit card number can be used by criminals to steal your identity and cause you harm. Additionally, documents that contain your address, phone number, email address, family history (i.e. mother's maiden name, grandparents' names, etc.), children's names or dates of birth, and more can be used to guess passwords and initiate unwanted contact. Shredding documents that contain confidential information is key.

If you are starting a new job working from a home office, you need to get the office ready before the first day of work. Being prepared is the best way to start and be successful in a new venture. Part of getting ready – other than furnishing the office – is to organize the services you will need, including document shredding. An office deals with many documents and digital media that contain others' private information.

As the end of another year approaches, now is a good time to evaluate your document destruction policy and consider your end-of-year shredding strategy. While it's easy to get a little relaxed about documents that have reached the end of life, leaving them in storage beyond their shred date poses risk to your home and your identity security. Year-end purging can help free up space in your home, remove fire hazards, protect your personal information, and prevent threats of identity theft or fraud. While year-end document shredding can seem overwhelming, we're here to help.

In Florida, winter can be very wet. Unlike other areas where it’s very cold, there are certain parts of the state that have rain no matter what time of year. It’s always a good idea to be prepared for anything when living in Florida, and businesses should have a good scanning and storing system in place to accommodate any unforeseen flooding that can wreak havoc on their business, documents, and systems. Finding a good partner that understands the logistics of Florida’s ever-changing inclement weather to safely carry out a document management plan is key.

It’s the time of year when it’s time to review and reflect on what’s occurred throughout the year. It’s also a time where purging should be at an all-time high. Document shredding should be on schedule for the final weeks of the year, in addition to document scanning for documents and data that can’t be disposed of. Knowing which records to retain and which ones can be destroyed can make or break an organization that deals with sensitive data. An effective plan must be in place and carried out on a consistent basis.

While people have worked remotely for a long time, the concept was not popular with workplaces until the Covid-19 pandemic forced businesses deemed non-essential to close down or find alternative ways to keep running. Luckily for many offices, they are mostly digital, so remote employees could keep the business going.

You can increase productivity and security in your office by using a document scanning service. Whether the files are active or in retention, scanning them into a secure cloud server allows you to access them when needed and keeps them secure from prying eyes. If you are not ready to move to a 100 percent digital office, you can not only scan the documents, which makes it easier to find them and secure them, but you can take advantage of our secure document storage.

Data breaches can happen to anyone, regardless of the size of the company. A breach, whether of physical or digital documents, can cost you a lot of money. You could be fined, and the person whose identity was stolen could sue you. You can take steps to minimize the chances of a data breach. Combining document destruction, document scanning, records storage, cloud storage and implementing a strong security system for your computers are all things you can do to minimize a data breach.

Trusting a company to handle scanning your records, whether they are your HR records or your clients' files, is a big step for some businesses. When it comes to scanning and storage, you want to make sure that the company you choose scans every document and that the document storage facility is secure.

Shredding documents and then recycling them doesn't really help the environment when you can't send those documents to a recycling facility that handles tiny pieces of paper. When you shred paper, it shortens the fibers and makes the paper just about useless. However, because we at Gilmore have so many documents – bales of them every day – we send the shredded documents to a special recycling plant that is able to use these tiny pieces of paper to make other products.

While aftereffects from Covid-19 aren’t over, many companies require their employees to return to office areas. What does that mean? It means that those employees who were working from home need document shredding solutions to ensure no company data or information is compromised. In addition, the company must have storage and other solutions ready to ensure a smooth return.

You’re ready to get back in the swing of things and are considering downsizing your home office. There are tons of things you can do, but first, determine why you are downsizing. Have your needs changed? Are you going back to the office? Businesses have a few challenges ahead as they determine whether they will start employing a full staff at the office, keep a rotating hybrid of employees, or want to go entirely remote. For employees, as you’re contemplating what’s next, consider the following:

During Florida's wet seasons, it's easy enough for businesses to get flooded, even those that are not in flood zones. You can save your clients' documents by taking the steps to go paperless or, at the very least, by using a document storage and scanning service. When you decide to go paperless, that means that you will probably have to scan hundreds or thousands of documents that have not reached the end of their retention time. It sounds like a big chore that most would rather ignore.

With identity theft more prevalent than ever and more and more companies going fully digital, the risk of customer data getting into the wrong hands is even higher. Most companies have good security, but they don't think about letting data on old hard drives getting into criminals' hands. 

Although many offices have resorted to going full-paperless, there are still many businesses that have not taken the time to assess their document storage protocols. Having a professional document storage company you can tap into to assist in protecting sensitive data is key. Why is document storage so important?

People are often at one end of the spectrum or another – they either keep tax records forever or throw them away as soon as they do their taxes. If you're in the former category, it's time to go through all of those old records and shred those you don't need to keep. If you're in the latter category, you need to keep your tax record for up to seven years.

A hard drive is a particularly valuable item to a criminal. Whether it starts as an idle curiosity or a full-fledged identity theft scheme, hard drives contain much information that people would prefer to keep private. If you own a business, it's up to you to keep your customers' information from falling into the wrong hands. The ripple effects of just one identity breach can branch into areas of people's lives that they may not have even realized were possible. Merely wiping a hard drive can't always do the job, and this is a common fallacy that can land people in hot water. Real hard drive destruction takes the whole process a step further, so you're assured that all the data stored on that drive is gone forever.