Beware this document security pitfall

By Gary Hunt, CAE, OSCPA communications director

The paperless workplace has been a boon to productivity, and has also led to new pitfalls like cybercrime. But another, potentially forgotten threat remains: paper documents remain a part of the business world and can still pose security risks.

On the latest episode of our podcast, “The State of Business with the Ohio Society of CPAs,” we dive into this issue with Senior Security Analyst Paul Fields and Solutions Architect Trent Heer, both from the Grove City, Ohio, data security firm ITSecureNow.

"The paperless dream never really is going to come true," Heer said, adding businesses that forget about those paper records do so at their own risk.

ITSecureNow's specialty is businesses facing compliance risks, namely in the areas of finance, law, government, education and health care. Fields said health care in particular has become a feeding ground for scammers because of the volume – and detailed nature – of the personal information involved in that industry’s business.

Fields said business leaders need to stay in front of potential problems by realizing they will never truly be solved for good – another new type of scam is always on the horizon.

“Security is not an event, it's a process,” he said.

Fields and Heer will take a deep dive into health care fraud on Oct. 24 at OSCPA's Health Care Summit in Columbus. The event is designed for CPAs in small- to medium-sized health care organizations, or practitioners providing services to such organizations. Be sure to catch them there in person. And listen to this episode of our podcast now on Stitcher or ITunes to hear the one easy thing you can do today to make your data safer.

Health Care Summit

Oct. 24 | Columbus