Identity theft and corporate espionage are two of the biggest threats to company safety today, but a high security shredder can protect your business from both. The news is filled with stories of identity theft and the repercussions for businesses when customers have their information stolen from dumpsters or trash cans. The loss of confidence in a business that was handling their information can cause astronomical financial loss. Businesses also suffer if their own information, such as marketing plans or internal memos can be stolen by competitors.

One of the easiest ways to protect your business is to be certain that all documents that contain personal client information and any internal documents that are no longer needed are destroyed. A high security shredder will completely shred all documents into confetti sized pieces that can't be reconstructed and will meet Level 5 and 6 government security standards.

If you're a small business owner or are operating a home-based business you may think you don't really need a high security shredder, but take some time to think about how many private documents you handle every month that you don't want other to get their hands on. If you work with any of the following documents regularly, you run the risk of a serious security breach if you aren't using a high security shredder to protect your business.

Monthly bank statements: You should keep these for a year, but once you get a statement at the end of the year, get rid of the old monthlies. You don't want thieves or competitors to have access to your accounts and detailed information about your assets.

Loan information: For obvious reasons, you don't want anyone to know about relative assets or liabilities your company is carrying. While you have to keep the actual loan document for the life of the loan, you don't have to keep every statement or every receipt. You'll get periodic statements showing the remaining balance on the loan; check your information against these and keep only the most recent statement.

Credit card applications: Always shred blank applications. Many of these are addressed to your business name and address and may even have a particular person's name. Someone can fish these out of the trash and apply for credit, changing the address. That person will then have credit in your company's name. They could seriously damage your credit before anyone notices.

Any and all old documents with client information: This is one rule you can't ever afford to ignore. If you purge your files periodically and get rid of duplicates and outdated paperwork, shred everything that has to do with your customers or clients, right down to old phone messages. You are liable for any information that leaks out about your client that originated from your business and wasn't disposed of properly. That means if you put a phone message with a client's name and phone number in your dumpster and someone dives in, retrieves it and begins stalking your client, it's your fault!

You need to shred everything you no longer need from official documents to memos. This includes health records, legal documents, meeting notes and anything that has a client's personal information of any kind.

When you're ready to invest in a high security shredder for your business, look for one that will handle the amount of paper your office produces each week and keep in mind potential growth so that it will work for you in the years to come.