Review us on Google

With the holidays fast approaching, there is a flurry of activity as everybody looks to make purchases for their loved ones. With the current state of affairs, specifically a global pandemic, many are turning to online shopping in order to avoid the densely packed crowds of shopping malls and other stores. Cyber criminals are also aware of this fact, and will be stepping up activity to try and take advantage during this period. In order to avoid getting a nasty surprise during the holidays, some extra vigilance is required.

Person touching a shield with a lock symbol, concept about security, cybersecurity and protection against dangers

Taking Care With Online Purchases

The first thing to keep in mind is avoiding shopping on any suspect websites. If you search around for a specific product, and you find it for sale online on a site you’ve never heard of before, avoid purchasing out of impulse. Take some time to try and do some research on them to see if there have been any issues reported about them. If all seems to be on the up and up, go ahead and make that purchase!

If you want a little extra protection for online purchases, consider purchasing a VPN to protect your network. A virtual private network (VPN) creates a private connection to your internet that provides privacy and anonymity. It essentially makes it so your online actions are virtually untraceable, this is especially important for wi-fi connections. If you’re ever worried about making online purchases due to someone stealing your details, a VPN can certainly help reduce the chances of anything like that happening from your end.

Keep An Eye On Receipts

With a lot of spending going on this time of year it could be easy to miss some extra purchases that you didn’t make. Keep all the receipts from your purchases during this period so you can keep a running total of your expenses. Check on your finances regularly to be sure nothing irregular has happened.

While doing this, make sure your receipts aren’t loose and neglected in a way that would allow someone to get a hold of them. Keep them in a safe place that only you have access to. Once the holiday season is over, and once you decide that you don’t need them anymore, you can get them securely destroyed. How to do that though?

The best way is seeking out a professional document shredding service which specializes in coming to your home and securely destroying paper records. By destroying them in this manner, you will be ensuring no one will be able to steal them to a nefarious purpose. Furthermore, not only will you be secure, but you will be helping sustainability as all shredded material is sent for recycling.

 

It’s truly a win-win situation!

Remember to take some care during the holidays so you aren’t left with a nasty new year surprise, it’s not the year for anymore of those.

Email phishing scams are becoming more sophisticated and harder to spot. According to PCI Security Standards Council, “Phishing costs the average U.S. organization more than $3.7 million annually”. That’s a lot of money.

With many people working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more people are for the first time communicating primarily through email. Cyber criminals are aware of this, and are taking action to take advantage of people during this tough time. It’s for that reason that an extra degree of vigilance is required in recognizing scam emails.

some hands typing on a keyboard

Intel Security developed a quiz that tests the consumer’s ability to recognize phishing emails. The data was collected from 144 countries and 19,000 people.

Here’s what they found:

What is a Phishing Scam, and How Does it Work?

Phishing scams are usually fraudulent emails appearing to be sent from legitimate businesses you trust, such as: your bank, credit card company, internet service provider, etc. These emails may contain links infected with malware or the link may direct you out of the email and onto a fake website. These fake websites look almost identical to the real websites. That’s why these phishing scams are so successful. The cyber criminal’s goal is to get a user to enter their sensitive information into the fake website. Victims may be tricked into giving up their usernames, address, passwords, social security number, or credit card information.

4 Red Flags To Look For

Bad Grammar: Let’s start with the most common signs of a phishing email-bad grammar and misspelled words. If you’re careful the mistake can be easy to spot like, “ Dear Custumer” instead of “Dear Customer.” However, if you’re not careful, you might not even notice it. While reading through your emails keep in mind that any legitimate company will have professionals writing and editing their marketing emails. They don’t just send out an email without checking it several times. So, if you notice a spelling or grammar mistake, it’s probably a scam.

Generic Email Greeting: Most phishing emails are sent to thousands of people at a time. For that reason, be on the lookout for emails that have generic greetings like , “Dear Customer” or “ Hello.” Some phishing emails don’t have a greeting at all. If an email is not specifically addressed to you but is asking for your personal information, it’s probably phishing.

Fake URL: Phishing emails typically contain malicious hyperlinks that appear to be legitimate.  For example, the link in your email  will contain your internet service providers name. But, if you use your mouse to hover over the link (do not click it), you may notice that in a little pop up window the URL is different from the one shown in the email. The URL will not have your internet service provider’s domain name. Spend time checking links in suspicious emails.

It Asks For Personal Information: Reputable companies, big or small understand the severity of a phishing email. That’s why they will never ask for your personal information through an email. If you get an email from a company asking you to “update your account information” or “reset your password,” do not do it from the email. Instead, check out the situation yourself by opening up a new tab and typing in the company website yourself.

Cyber criminals go above and beyond to make their phishing emails look as real as possible. To keep your personal information safe from cyber criminals always, stop and look for red flags.

Office worker creates a passage in a paper Sea as Moses.

Online record keeping and sharing is growing substantially in popularity due to convenience, ease of use, and general efficiency. Of course with electronic file keeping also brings the risk of security threats that can be damaging to individuals and companies. While it is important to ensure you are protected online with anti-virus software and password protection, it’s equally important to pay attention to your company policies and practices internally. Information security starts with proper management of your Boston office and its employees, including critical training in relation to confidential business matters.

No business wants to doubt their staff, however mistakes do happen and sometimes employee error happens. Unfortunately if significant enough, such error could contribute to data breach. If a sensitive document gets tossed in a garbage can and a thief gains access through dumpster diving, this can also cause for concern.  At the end of the day there are many ways in which information can be exposed mistakenly and/or slip outside your office. The good news is that with the proper security measures in place, often these threats can be minimized dramatically.

Minimizing Threats

Shared Computers

Employees that do regular shift work will in many cases share computers; offices that are designed to be “open concept” will also likely share work stations.

Problem: Employees usually have individual folders containing sensitive information and in a lot of circumstances, internet browsers will save log-in and passwords when they should really be kept secured.

Solution: For the highest level of security, you should arrange that each employee is provided with a unique account and access. Password protection software including difficult to guess passwords are also highly recommended.

Garbage Containers

It is not uncommon for staff to toss away a document without even thinking twice about its content.

Problem: The scary truth is that regardless of strict privacy regulations in place, a survey by an office supply company found that close to half of businesses in the United States are failing to shred paperwork prior to disposal.

Solution: Hire an experienced document destruction provider who can also provide you with secure collection containers in which you can safely discard files. These documents remain secured and protected from exposure through until your shredding company collects and empties each bin. Implementing a shred-all policy to prevent confusion is also a great idea as it also improves security levels immensely.

Office Printers

It’s really easy to forget files you’ve sent to the printer if you are even the slightest bit distracted. This mistake occurs often and while we may remember an hour or two later, if rushed or busy, records can be left entirely without retrieval.

Problem: Many copier and printers’ hard drives also store copies of each document that has been formerly scanned or printed. This drive can be removed which can leave data susceptible to exposure.

Solution: Printing stations should have security reminders as reinforcement to your employees. You may wish to use printing and scanning security codes, or have an access-controlled spot that’s exclusively there for the printing of confidential files. Finally, don’t forget to disable memory in equipment if able.

Cluttered Office

A messy workspace that is full of paperwork is a security threat right off the gate.

Problem: If private details are left in an open area, it’s extremely easy for those with wandering eyes to catch a glimpse of your records. Another risk that often goes ignored is that open discussions take place regularly and in a lot of circumstances they can include events, personal details, or projects that should not be common knowledge among other employees for privacy purposes. Unless discussed in a separate room, these conversations are likely to be heard from nearby staff.

Solution: Stop prying eyes and ears by sound-proofing your Boston office, and by starting a Clean Desk Policy. Be sure you have controlled access in place within your office and check that all computer systems have privacy filters implemented.

Getting Shredding

Get in touch with A1 DATASHRED for document shredding solutions you can depend on. We will help guide you in designing a document shredding program that is appropriate for your company. No need to keep taking risks when secure services can come straight to your door.

We shred your outdated medical records at the location of your choosing in Tewksbury, Massachusetts six days a week. To get a quote and make an appointment just give us a call. You can have service as soon as tomorrow.

Get A Quote Today

We have been servicing healthcare providers with on-site shredding of medical records for many years in the Tewksbury, Massachusetts area.  Our experienced staff is available to speak with you so we can put together a service that meets your needs. We can give you a quote right over the phone and set up your service date at the same time. Your service can start tomorrow.

Two Great Options for the Destruction of Healthcare Files

One-time File Purges – If your medical office needs to do a purge of charts once a year or you want to reduce boxes of medical records you have at an offsite storage facility our one-time service is a great way to go. This service is for any occasional need to shred patient charts and records.

Ongoing Shredding Programs – If your office staff is throwing out documents regularly if not daily you need to put a shredding program in place.  We will place our locked collection containers in your office so anytime your staff is throwing out a document they do so in one of the locked containers. We will arrive at your office on a recurring basis to empty and shred the contents of each receptacle. Your schedule can be weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, every other month or quarterly.

Who Needs To Destroy Medical Records?

Every doctor’s office, urgent care centers, ambulatory surgical centers, laboratories, Hospitals and all other healthcare providers need to shred medical records when they are being disposed of. In 1996, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) passed into law. Part of the act, included a privacy rule, with significant privacy protections for Protected Health Information (PHI) and severe penalties for violations. That means if you are disposing of patient charts they need to be shredded.

The HIPAA Privacy Rule

Under HIPAA, the term for protected documents refers to Protected Health Information, (PHI). The rule calls for specific methods of destruction of PHI. Just tossing hard copy information in dumpsters or any trash receptacle without be shredded is a violation.

Approved destruction methods include:

The rule requires PHI be made unreadable, incapable of reconstruction, indecipherable and impossible to reconstruct. Shredding, pulping, burning and pulverizing are approved methods of destroying medical records.

You Should Keep Documentation of Destroyed Medical Records

In addition to written policies and procedures on retention and destruction, it is recommended that a healthcare facility maintain documentation of the medical records that are destroyed. These logs should be maintained permanently and should include the following:

A1 DataShred makes logging destroyed patient charts easy by providing you with a Certificate of Destruction.

The Benefits of Outsourcing Destruction of Medical Information to A1 DataShred

Hospitals, clinics, laboratories, and physician offices are in the business of providing healthcare. Even with the implementation of Electronic Medical Records Systems (EMR’s) the amount of paper and other hard copy documentation produced in health care facilities is immense. Those healthcare providers that destroy records in-house learn quickly that it is a time consuming task. Paying staff to feed medical records through a small shredder is expensive. Outsourcing document destruction to A1 DataShred makes destroying medical records easy and cost effective. All you have to do is show us what files you want shredded and we do the rest.

Give A1 DataShred a call today.

We Can Help You Host A Successful Shredding Event

A1 DataShred helps municipalities, organizations, groups, churches and businesses host community shredding events. It is a great way for charities to raise money or collect donations like food or to promote your business and bring awareness to identity protection. Partnering with A1 DataShred, a locally owned paper shredding company, makes hosting a shredding event easy.

What is a Shredding Event?

A shredding event is where a mobile paper destruction truck or trucks is made available in an open area where people arrive with their documents they want shredded. The helpful staff of the document shredding company takes the papers from each guest and destroys them with the mobile unit as they look on. Community shredding events can be held anywhere there is easy access and a lot of room. They’re usually held in parking lots or large public spaces such as community centers, beaches, banks, school facilities, or any area that has plenty of room and easy access for cars.

Here is How Shredding Events Work

Why Partner With A1 DataShred

A1 DataShred is the best paper shredding company in the Tewksbury, Massachusetts area. We partner with businesses and organizations for community shredding events that can be a minimum of two hours, a half day, or even a full day. We are experienced with helping local businesses, politicians, charities, nonprofits, schools, municipalities, banks, building management, residential organizations, and many other types of organizations run successful shedding events. Hosting these document destruction events helps increase awareness about identity theft while giving local residents or clients an opportunity to do something to protect themselves along with demonstrating your commitment to the community and creating goodwill. We have a fleet of high-tech paper shredding trucks that are capable of destroying 6,000 pounds of paper per hour. This means we can shred for your guests’ quickly and efficiently, no matter how many people attend your event. With A1 DataShred we handle the shredding and you and your team focus on your quests.

How to Advertise Your Shredding Event

The more people know about your event the more successful it will be. Traditional methods of advertising still work very well like posting flyers in Libraries, grocery stores, pharmacies, laundromats or wherever community posting boards are available. Contact local radio stations, newspapers, and TV they can be very help full and maybe they will do a news segment on the event. Use the internet it is far more reaching. Social media sites and local event sites are a great place to get the word out. Get your staff or volunteers to get the word out. They can use their own social networks like Facebook or Linkedin to help people know about the event.

Your Shredding Event Will Also Help The Environment

A great follow up PR announcement about your event that will set the stage for future events is how much papers was shredded and how many trees were saved by hosting the event. All of the documents and files that have been destroyed at your event are going to be recycled. That recycled paper will be used to make other paper products. Every ton of paper that was destroyed and recycled will save 17 trees.

Get A Free Guide To Hosting A Shredding Event

Contact us today for more information or download a FREE copy of our “Organize a Shredding Event Helpful Guide”. We’re happy to work with you to organize a shredding event to meet your goals and best serve your local community or clients.

We make it easy for every type of business to securely destroy their paper records when and where they need it done in Massachusetts.  Whether you need a one-time purge or you want to start an ongoing program in your office we can start shredding for you right away if you call us today.

Here Are The East Steps To Shred Business Records

We Shred Your Office Records On-site

Our fleet of commercial shredding trucks allows us to bring document destruction right to your business location or anywhere you have files that need to be destroyed. Our mobile units can shred 6,000 pounds of paper records per hour. That means we can take care of any size shredding project faster than any other alternative you are considering. You will also be able to witness your files being destroyed on a viewing screen on the side of the truck.

Service Choices

One-time File Purges – With our one-time service you can destroy business records once a year or as often as you would like. The frequency is entirely up to you when you have files and documents you want to securely shred. We can make room in your office by reducing cluttered files or we can reduce or eliminate boxed records you have in storage. You just tell us where and when and we will be there.

Schedule Office Shredding Programs – We will set your office up with our locked bins and consoles so whenever you have to throw away a document or file you place it in one of our locked containers. The receptacles will be placed in locations so all of your employees can use them. We will come to your office on an ongoing schedule to empty the containers and shred the deposited papers. Your schedule can be weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. Need something a little different we can create a custom schedule for you.

Shredding Events Generate Business – Host a shredding event to introduce your company to new clients or as a thank you to existing customers. We bring one of our state of the art paper shredding trucks to your office parking lot or any public area you get authorization to use. Then we will shred the documents your guests bring. While we are shredding you can focus on your guests. Shredding events are charged by the hour they run from 2 to 8 hours during the week or 3 to 8 hours on weekends. Most firms choose 3 or 4 hour events.

What You Should Shred – More than half of all documents you discard every day in your office have some piece of information on them that privacy laws require they get shredded when they are being thrown away. Don’t take chances to shred every document that is being discarded.

Give A1 DataShred a call today to get a quote and make an appointment.

You may have heard before about the concept of a shredding event, though you may not know what it is exactly. For those of you who are not familiar with this concept, we will hopefully provide some insights that will help you understand shredding events. The main things to know is this: they are hosted to benefit the whole community, are a great way for everyone to get their shredding done, and raise awareness on the importance of information safety.

a woman carrying a box of files

What It’s All About

Benefiting The Community

The big thing with shred events is the goal of keeping our communities safe. Many people are not aware of the true risks information theft poses. Throwing one of these events provides the opportunity to keep the community protected. As a big event, the public is invited to come on out with their sensitive information and get it shredded on the spot. For many that is an opportunity they may not have previously had available.

Raise Awareness

Not only is this an opportunity to get some documents shred that they may not have before, these events are great for informing our communities why shredding is important. Since they bring everyone together, you can ensure your neighbours are informed about information security. That is really the heart of a shredding event, ensuring that everyone is informed and protected. Communities look after each other, in any way they can, but there are some threats that are less tangible, and it makes tackling them difficult. Information theft is one threat you can tackle as a community through shred events.

What Happens To The Shreds?

One thing people always want to know is what happens to the shreds after the papers have been destroyed. We’re committed to helping push forward sustainability efforts. To that end, all shreds are taken to be recycled properly and turned into new products. In this way a shred event helps the people, and the environment.

Let’s put it into perspective. By recycling just 1 ton of paper 17 mature trees are saved. 7000 gallons of water will not be used, and 3 cubic yards of landfill space gets saved for trash that is supposed to go there. 2 barrels of oil and 4100 kilowatt-hours of electricity is not consumed, which lowers the overall impact of the energy sector. Now take those numbers and pump it up to an entire community shredding their papers. As you can see, the impact is incredible.

How To Organize An Event

Setting up an event is as simple as choosing a location, date and time, and selecting a service provider that can shred the documents. The details get hashed out, and the shred truck arrives at the appointed place, and the community gathers. From there the event happens, and we’re all the better for it.

So consider setting up a shred event for you, the community, and the environment!

 

With more and more people working from home these days, depending on where you are of course, the amount of cyber scams that target home workers has also increased. For many people, this new digital work environment is new, and they aren’t used to identifying obvious, and less obvious, attempts at cyber scams. In order to try and help you along, let’s look at some of the common ones that may float through your cyberspace.
a person typing on a keyboard

Business / IT Email Fraud

Email scams have increased since the start of this whole pandemic, specifically related to business and IT industries. Since many businesses have had to make emergency financial transactions, rushed orders, and cancelled requests. All this new back and forth leads to an opportunity for scam emails to slip in unnoticed, especially since it is difficult for remote workers to get a quick answer from co-workers to verify the legitimacy of said email.

Healthcare Scams

You may have noticed that there is a pandemic currently and that leads to an increase in medical needs. Medical scams have gone up to try and capitalize on people’s fear, and their needs for medical supplies. COVID-19 scams specifically have come out of the woodwork, people receive an email saying they were infected with the virus, or in an infected area, and request your personal information, or to fill out a form.

Assistance Fraud

Some places are receiving government assistance during the pandemic, others are hotly debating it. Whatever the reality is, fraudsters are once again trying to take advantage of the situation. Emails claiming to be registrations and applications for these programs are sent out, getting you to fill in all your details. Then, just like that, they’re able to commit identity theft. It’s important to understand how assistance programs in your area, if any, work, and how they will get in touch with you.

Learn How To Avoid Suspicious Emails

The best way for home workers, and anyone really, to protect themselves from these types of scams is learning to recognize them as they come in. If an email comes in and seems to look weird, don’t respond to it, if you don’t recognize the sender, don’t respond to it. Certainly don’t send back any information, or fill out forms, click any buttons, etc. In fact, if an email looks suspicious or you don’t recognize it, don’t even open it. Get verified if you’re not sure, otherwise feel free to delete right out of hand.