As society’s reliance on technology reaches new heights, keeping your business’s cyber security up to date is vital. Technology has become an all-encompassing part of our daily life; by living in reality, we are inadvertently immersing ourselves in the digital world. Sometimes, parts of ourselves that we do not want to be exposed also get released into this new digitally connected reality as well.
With new advances in technology come new loopholes for hackers to access privately held information, and make it public. This is not a matter of concern for people who do not keep their cyber security up-to-date; even large corporations and entities are at risk. 
Last year, Massachusetts General Hospital announced it had begun notifying 4,300 patients of a security breach that may have compromised their personal information. How did this happen? The data was being stored by a third-party vendor, Patterson Dental Supply Inc. (PDSI), when it was accessed by hackers. The files that were stored by PDSI included information such as the patient’s name, date of birth and even the patient’s Social Security number. Authorities also believe that hackers may have been able to access patient’s date of an appointment the type of appointment made, and the patient’s medical record number.
A more notable instance of hacking was the Yahoo data breach in 2014, which is counted as one of the largest hacks in history. Yahoo, a technology conglomerate, had at least 500 million user accounts stolen from its database. Hackers were reportedly able to access information such as names, emails, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords, and security questions and answers.
The more we immerse ourselves in the technological world, the more risk we run of having our information obtained, if we do not properly protect ourselves. Even our presidential election this past year is being investigated for hacking. While these instances may seem alarming, they serve as excellent case studies to motivate individuals to be aware of how they properly dispose of data. If you are interested in learning how to mitigate the risk of your data falling into the wrong hands, contact us today.