If you are traveling back and forth to work with client files in your car, you might want to start taking precautions, especially if those client files contain sensitive information.

Imagine this scenario…

You’re just leaving the office after a long day.

But like any good hard working employee or business owner, there’s always more work to be done and hard deadlines that need to be met.

So you pack up a few client files and load them into the back seat of your car so you can do a little work at home.

On the way home, you remember that you have to stop by the grocery store to get some milk and cereal so the kids can eat breakfast in the morning.

By the time you eventually get home, and get the groceries into the house, you’re just too tired to consider any more work for the evening and decide that you’ll wake up extra early in the morning to get a few things done before leaving for work.

Now, imagine if at some point in the above sequence your car is stolen or broken into and your briefcase is stolen. If this were to ever happen, you’re going to have to come to grips with some potentially painful consequences.

You are going to have to notify your clients that their documents were stolen and that there is a potential for identity theft. This could not only be crushing for your customers, but also for you professionally.

Here are some tips you can take in order to protect work documents that are routinely transferred to and from your secure office location:

1. You will want to have an accurate accounting of what documents were stolen. Only keep a minimal amount of client information when transporting documents back-and-forth between your office and home. If multiple employees are routinely taking home client information, you may want to implement a client information checkout procedure at the office. It’s much better to know which clients were affected than having to notify each and every one of your clients of a data breech.
2. Don’t assume your vehicle is safe. Keep in mind that you have customers’ information sitting in the car if you decide to make pit-stops on the way to or from the office. When you get home, be sure that you also bring in the documents where there’s a more reasonable expectation that they are safe.
3. Don’t leave documents lying around at home, in the office, or in the car if at all possible. This information should be protected just as you protect the information in your computer with passwords and behind firewalls. Keep physical document with sensitive information in secure filing cabinets or destroy those files on a routine basis if they are no longer needed.

Taking a few extra moments and steps to protect your customers data is not only the right thing to do professionally, but it is also an important policy to implement in order to protect the good name and reputation you’ve taken so long to build.

About the author: Mike Krauss is the CEO and President of Total Secure Shredding, Inc. a local Disabled Veteran owned San Diego Paper Shredding Service.

Bobbi Pearson of Oak Tree Escrows, Inc.

Oak Tree Escrows is a Full Service Escrow Company and has been East County’s leading independent escrow company since 1980.

Oak Tree was also the Proud winner of the East County Chamber of Commerce’s El Cajon 2009 Business of the Year Award!

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact Bobbi Pearson at

(619) 440-1815

Due to new California regulations (Assembly Bill 2244)  children will be offered health insurance coverage on a Guaranteed Issue Basis from January 1, 2011 through March 1, 2011.

Important to note is that outside of this 60 day window the only other time a carrier is eligible to write a child only policy in 2011, if the child can qualify through underwriting or not, is the month of the child’s birthday.

During this period an insurer will not decline coverageor impose exclusions for pre-existing conditions for children under the age of 19, including child-only applicants.  They may rate-up for some medical conditions.

Feel free to give me a call if you have any further questions.

Jeff Ensign
(619) 463-5474

P.S. Please leave comments below.

Information you’ve long forgotten the existence and importance of is still being held in its entirety on those old computers you have sitting around in the garage.

Just a few weeks ago I resurrected an old PC that first was used in my home and then somewhere along the line migrated itself to the office.

During the time at the office, it had been kicked, shuffled, tipped over, and generally neglected.

But I had a need for another computer around the shop, and when faced with the cost of a new computer in relation for the need I had, I thought I might give the old computer a try.

So I hooked up a monitor, keyboard and mouse and fired it up.

To my surprise it started up perfectly fine and loaded up windows without a single problem.

But besides my amazement that the computer loaded up, I was even more surprised at all the old information that was still on the hard drive.

I completely forgot that this was the computer that I was using when I started Total Secure Shredding (A local document shredding company here in San Diego).

It had QuickBooks Files, old Quicken files (personal financial information), plenty of Word and Excel files, plus multiple email programs that were not password protected and which had a ton of old emails on them.

The moral is that these “Old” computers do have some very substantial information on them than may be putting your business or family at risk of Identity Theft.

And, as you may have seen in recent days, this also goes for just about every copier that has been built since 2002.

In April, CBS News broke the story that many copiers sent out for resale have not had their hard drives sanitized or replaced.

Of the four copiers that were picked at random to meet certain price and volume specifications, every last one of them had hard drives jammed full of confidential information. Adding insult to injury, two of them came from two different Buffalo NY police departments with one still having documents on the glass. One of the other was from a New York Construction company and contained design plans while the other was from a New York insurance company.

All that was needed to get documents of the copier from the insurance company was to hit “PRINT”. The result was “300 pages of individual medical records.” Current HIPAA regulations mandate that the information that was found (Drug Prescriptions, Blood Test Results, & Cancer Diagnosis) must be properly destroyed prior to disposal.

This dilemma can even be extended to some printers.

There are many “Enterprise” level printers that also contain hard drives that must be sanitized or destroyed before they leave your premises.

I personally research and tracked down at least 50 printer models that could contain hard drives. Not all of these appear to come standard with a hard drive but are optional. All that means is that you need to physically verify whether or not your printer has a hard drive.

So whether it’s your PC, your Laptop, your Printer, or your Copier, digital information is all around us and a permanent part of our society…

And precautions have to be make to ensure all that digital information is properly handled upon disposal – just as important as getting all your sensitive paper documents shredded.

As far as my old computer goes…

It turns out that some of the information on the hard drive got corrupted somehow and now the thing will no longer boot up. Whether or not I ever get the thing working again, one thing you can be sure on, hard drive shredding is an absolute must and I’ll make sure that hard drive is properly destroyed before it gets thrown out.

Keep Total Secure,

Mike Krauss
Total Secure Shredding, Inc.
(619) 295-5474

P.S. The reason the data on my old hard drive was corrupted was because of a USB Wireless Network “Thumb Drive” Device.  During the troubleshooting process to figure out what went wrong, I found out that the wireless device’s memory was able to hold the pass code to my networks wireless router.

When I plugged it into the replacement computer, it automatically accessed my network – not good.

So please, take a second look at anything electronic. Who knows what information it might contain?

You too may have found yourself wondering…

Where to Funnel Your Advertising Budget.

Periodically we give speeches about our services at networking events, Chamber of Commerce Events, etc.  In doing so we always begin by engaging the audience.

We engage them by asking them the following 3 simple yet effective questions.

Question#1 By a show of hands how many people in this room know exactly where they can find their yellow pages at home?

About half know exactly where to find their yellow pages and raise their hand.

Question#2 By a show of hands how many people in this room access the internet first when researching the products or services they seek?

Every person in the room has a hand held high.

Question#3 Where do you think you should advertise?

At that point I could say, “Thank you very much” and sit down without even talking about our services.

Without mentioning what we do, the entire audience has just been convinced and seen proof that their advertising budgets should be focused on Quality Online Marketing.

I say quality online marketing because on a daily basis we meet business owners that have spent large amounts of time and money on websites with no functionality.

Most of these sites are nothing more than Pictures on the Internet.

In fact some of the nicest looking sites with great pictures and music are actually the Most Dis-Functional.

They get your attention and impress you with flash…

But they Fail to Bring You Customers.

Please… Do Not allow these poorly built websites to finalize your opinion of online marketing.

If you can relate to this, then you are absolutely not alone.

If you had your website built with the hopes of it driving in new customers, and it failed to do so, then we can help.

We can help you Re-Coupe what you thought was lost by utilizing our marketing tools to drive traffic to your existing site and eventually to your business.

If you are launching a new business let us help you do so with a Bang of Exposure and Awareness.

Awareness for consumers of the great new business headed their way.

We believe that the opening of your business should be marketed Long Before it’s opening… Creating anticipation for that special day.

If you would like to give your business a facelift with a whole new website, designed to drive you traffic, utilizing surveys, coupons, email campaigns, and a place for your customers to buy your products then call us today, because we want to become part of the reason for your success.

Sean Wilcock
San Diego Click E Deals
(619) 922.9825
Email s.wilcock@clickedeals.com
Blog http://blog.clickedeals.com

Mike here of Total Secure Shredding, Inc., your Premier Paper Shredding Service of San Diego County.

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of taking part in an extremely enlightening interview with Dan Libby of Digital Forensics, Inc. – a local San Diego Expert in Computer Forensics and Information Systems Security.

Dan spent 25 years in government service with a Major Intelligence Agency (If I told ya I’d have to kill ya!) and is a wealth of information when it comes to the various security risks that are lurking out there on the internet.

I know this segment definitely opened my eyes to a few items with regard to securing your computer.

I was under the impression that Adobe PDF’s were extremely secure and I made sure to attach PDF’s to emails I send out whenever possible.

But Dan noted that Adobe PDF’s have been ranked as the #1 Vulnerability by the US Government when it comes hackers being able to access high profile networks… including those of the government!

Once a hacker injects a code into a PDF and you consequently open that PDF (or any document), the hacker has the opportunity to take control of your computer and add it to the hacker’s “Zombie Network.”

Your IP Address can then be sold on the Black Market to “Spammers” who can then Send Spam Emails All Night Long… Using Your Computer!

Did you know that over 90% of all spam sent in the world is sent from people who don’t know they are sending it?

Dan says that Most Important thing you can do to prevent the hacking of your computer is to “Update, Update, Update!”

Once a threat has been identified, software companies will take measures to mitigate that threat by providing updates to their software.

“If you don’t update update, you’re running software with known security vulnerabilities.”

Here’s a few things you can do right now to help eliminate computer hacking threats:

• Update all your programs. When a programs notifies you that there is an update available, take the time to download and install the update. It’s typically a very simple process with the software walking you through.
• Turn off your computer at night. Dan says, “They can’t get to you if your not on the network.”
• Install a Firewall on your computer either hardware or software based.
• Install anti-Virus and anti-Trojan software and make sure it’s updated.
• Keep a Look Out for suspicious email and it’s definitely a  good idea to not open any email attachments that you’re not expecting.

To listen to the entire Segment, click the link below:

If it’s already too late… the hackers have infiltrated your computer.

… Or if you’re just not sure on how to install all the programs required to keep your computer safe and secure going forward, I’ve got the perfect person for you to talk to…

For all your Computer Repair and Virus Removal needs, please check out Dave Stansberry of Dave Stans Place.

And, between you and me, I think he’s running some Great Specials on this very topic!

Until Next Time.

Keep Totally Secure,

Mike Krauss

Total Secure Shredding, Inc.

(619) 295-5474

This week’s LeTip of East County Member Spotlight is Sheri Malvestuto from Visiting Angels – America’s Choice in Home Care.

After her husband was diagnosed with a rare form of dementia, Sheri found herself transformed.

Literally overnight, Sheri became a “Round-The-Clock” caregiver and bread winner for her family.

Caring for a loved one is demanding work, but equally so is finding a qualified caregiver.

These challenges motivated Sheri to open a Visiting Angels franchise.

Through Visiting Angels, Sheri is able to provide bonded, licensed, and insured caregivers for her husband and many others who need a helping hand in San Diego East County.

Among the services Sheri provides are:

• Hygiene Assistance
• Meal Preparation/Diet Monitoring
• Light Housekeeping
• Errands and Shopping
• Respite for Family Caregivers

For more information on caregiver services and Visiting Angels, contact Sheri at:

Sheri Malvestuto – Visiting Angels – America’s Choice in Home Care

Phone: (619) 401-2040

Email: smalvestuto@visitingangels.com

Online: www.VisitingAngels.com

Have a Great Week,

Jesse Lipscomb
President
LeTip of East County

If you’ve never heard of LeTip before… Well Where Have You Been?

Just Kidding…

“LeTip is a professional organization of men and women dedicated to the highest standards of competence and service. Our purpose is the exchange of business tips. Members will, at all times, maintain the highest professional integrity. Each business category is represented by one member and conflicts of interest are disallowed.”

Perhaps you guessed… that last paragraph was from the LeTip Brochure.

Now here’s what LeTip really means – at least to me!

Maybe first I should tell you something about who “Me” is…

My name is Mike Krauss and I’m a Charter Member of “LeTip of East County”, I’m the Chapter’s Secretary, and I’m the CEO of Total Secure Shredding, Inc. – a local San Diego Paper Shredding company.

I joined this LeTip Chapter right at its beginning about six months ago…

And like anyone who’s considered joining LeTip or any other organized Networking Group, I was worried that having to commit to weekly meetings, helping to bring in new members, and helping to pass referrals (Tips) to my fellow members would be too large of a drain of my time!

Would it be worth it?

Because, just like you, I’m really busy, and to be honest, more busy than I really should be…

What I’ve found is that committing to attending weekly meetings has actually helped to make me less busy (or should I say more focused)!

How’s that?

Well, I’ve had to restructure a few things on how I run my business in order to attend these meetings.

And, to my surprise, this restructuring has helped to make my business stronger in that I can now leave my business for a few hours knowing that everything will keep going on without me – I Guess I’m Not As Important As I’d Like To Think!!

But That’s Just The Tip of The Iceberg!

I’ve come to know a great group of business professionals (Dare I Say Friends) who I’ve come to rely on for more than just Tips.

Our LeTip Chapter has grown into a real “Brain Trust” of Experts that are helping to Thrust my Business Forward in Ways I Never Imagined.

So, if you’re Too Busy…

This IS the time to consider something new!

We meet every Wednesday morning from 7am to 8:30am. This is not a fuzzy time frame – These Times Are Prompt – So Don’t Be Late!

Here’s the location:

Jamacha Bar & Grill
777 Jamacha Rd
El Cajon, CA 92019

So please, we are open to anyone who would like to visit – feel free to just show up.

Or, if just showing up seems a little “Not Your Style” (I say that only because just showing up would seem weird to me)…

Feel free to give me a call.

Here’s my cell: (619) 889-7518

I’d love to hear from you and answer any questions you might have.

We’ll talk again soon,

Mike Krauss
Secretary
LeTip of East County