Stephen’s World

Secure Document Shredding Companies

Well you know those secure shredding companies that many companies trust to ’securely’ dispose of important company documents. Well my advice to you DON’T, in fact shred your own documents.

Why you may ask, well take for example the company in the UK called Shred-it they provide you with a ‘locked’ wooden box with a canvas bag in it for your documents to be shredded. We have one in the office, it had the word secure on it, being hacker types that is a ‘red rag to a bull’.

We took a look at the box, cheap ‘chipboard’ wood poor construction, a cheap lock which would take probably 30 secs to pick, if that tbh. Exposed fixing screws and the joints are not even glued so this nice little shot shows one of the underside screws.

We also noticed a small vulnerability in the construction around the lock, a nice wide gap

Armed with nothing more than fingers it is possible to bend the side enough to allow the door to be opened without damage to the door, side or lock and open the ’secure’ box and leave us with this.

What is more surpising is that the canvas bag inside has a simple draw cord to secure it and it doesn’t even have anti-tamper seals.


So how sure are you that those documents you want securely shredded are actually making it to a shredder. Or that one of your over night cleaners is not opening up the box and removing documents before the Shred-it guy comes for them. The answer is you don’t.. SHRED YOUR OWN documents and then you will know that they are securely dealt with, if you have to use these companies, well shred it yourself and then drop the shredded paper into their back and have them shred it again..