What would happen if your Salesforce data was suddenly exposed to the wrong people? Imagine the impact on your customers, reputation, and bottom line.
Data breaches cost businesses an average of $4.88 million in 2024, according to an IBM report—and most of these incidents are preventable with the proper Salesforce data security measures.
As businesses depend more on digital systems and remote access, securing your Salesforce CRM has never been more critical. Misconfigurations, weak passwords, and lack of access control can leave your data at risk.
This guide will help you understand Salesforce's data security features and uncover seven best data protection practices.
What Is Salesforce Data Security?
Salesforce data security refers to the strategies and tools designed to protect sensitive customer and business information stored within the Salesforce platform.
From preventing unauthorized access to ensuring compliance with industry standards, data security in Salesforce encompasses a range of protective measures, including user authentication, data encryption, and monitoring tools.
While Salesforce has built-in security features, proper configuration and continuous monitoring are key to securing your data.
Types of Salesforce Data Security
Salesforce data security is built on four primary layers, each crucial in safeguarding your data from internal and external threats.
Understanding these layers is key to building a robust security framework for your CRM.
1. Object-Level Security
Object-level security controls what types of records users can access in Salesforce. It determines whether a user has permission to view, create, edit, or delete records in a given object (e.g., Accounts, Contacts, Opportunities). This layer ensures that users only see data relevant to their role.
2. Field-Level Security
Field-level security goes deeper, specifying which fields a user can view or edit within an object.
For example, you might want a sales rep to access opportunity details but restrict access to sensitive financial data within the same record. Field-level security gives you this control, ensuring sensitive information remains protected.
3. Record-Level Security
Record-level security allows you to set permissions on individual records within an object. This ensures that users only have access to specific documents based on criteria like ownership or sharing rules.
For instance, a sales manager may access all records in their team's account, while a sales rep only has access to their own.
4. System-Level Security
System-level security includes tools like multi-factor authentication (MFA) and encryption to protect the overall integrity of your Salesforce instance.
MFA ensures that users authenticate their identity through multiple means (e.g., a password and a one-time code), while encryption secures sensitive data during transit and at rest.
Importance of Salesforce Data Security
Your Salesforce data holds everything, from customer details to financial records and internal reports. But what happens if that data falls into the wrong hands?
Here's why Salesforce data security matters:
Protects Customer Trust & Brand Reputation
Your customers expect their information to be safe. A security breach can break their trust and damage your reputation. However, strong Salesforce data security measures reassure them that their data is well-protected.
Ensures Regulatory Compliance
Laws like GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA require businesses to protect sensitive data, and Salesforce Consent Management plays a key role in ensuring compliance by managing customer consent effectively.
A well-secured Salesforce environment helps you stay compliant, avoiding fines, lawsuits, or operational shutdowns.
Prevents Costly Breaches
Data breaches are expensive—not just in penalties but also in lost business and recovery costs. Strengthening your security reduces these risks, saving your company from potentially devastating financial consequences.
Reduces Internal Threats
Not all security risks come from external threats. Employees with unnecessary access can accidentally (or intentionally) expose sensitive data. Implementing proper controls helps minimize these risks.
Supports Business Continuity
Cyberattacks, system failures, and accidental data leaks can throw your business off track. But with a strong security framework, you can minimize downtime and bounce back quickly when things go wrong.
Best Practices for Salesforce Data Security
Salesforce's built-in data security features are powerful, but they're only as effective as how they're configured.
To protect your data, you must go beyond default settings and implement proactive security measures.
Here are seven best practices that will help you safeguard your Salesforce data:
1. Enforce Strong User Access Controls
Not everyone in your organization needs access to everything in Salesforce. Without proper user access controls, sensitive data can end up in the wrong hands, whether through insider threats or accidental exposure.
- Start by following the principle of least privilege (PoLP): Give users only the access they need to do their jobs.
- Use Profiles and Permission Sets to control access to objects and fields.
- Leverage Role Hierarchies and Sharing Rules to manage record-level visibility.
2. Encrypt Data at Rest and in Transit
Your Salesforce data constantly moves, whether stored within the platform or transferred between systems. Without proper encryption, sensitive information like customer records and financial data could be exposed to cyber threats or unauthorized access.
Salesforce automatically secures data in transit with Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption, keeping communication safe between users, systems, and third-party integrations.
For data at rest, Shield Platform Encryption provides an extra layer of protection by encrypting stored information. But it's not always enabled by default, so you must configure it.
Review your encryption settings to ensure they meet your organization's security needs.
3. Restrict Logins with IP Allowlisting & Session Controls
Not all login attempts should be treated equally. If an unauthorized user tries to access your Salesforce environment from an unknown location or device, it could signal a security threat. That's why restricting logins is essential.
With IP Allowlisting, you can define trusted IP ranges at the profile level, ensuring that users can only log in from approved networks—such as your company's office or secure VPN.
Also, session controls allow you to set timeouts and expiration rules to prevent users from staying logged in indefinitely, reducing the risk of unauthorized access.
4. Keep an Eye on Security with Audits & Alerts
Security threats often go unnoticed until it's too late. A failed login attempt, an unusual data export, or an unexpected login from another country could be warning signs of a breach.
Salesforce provides tools to help you stay ahead of these risks.
- Use Event Monitoring to track user activity, logins, and API calls for signs of suspicious behavior.
- Enable Field Audit Trail to keep records of critical data changes for compliance.
- Set up Transaction Security Policies to flag and block risky activities, like mass data exports.
- Schedule regular audits and set alerts to catch issues early and prevent data leaks.
These steps help you proactively identify and address security risks.
5. Protect Sensitive Data with Masking & Anonymization
Not everyone in your company needs full access to sensitive customer data. Developers, testers, or temporary employees might need to work with records, but exposing accurate customer details increases security risks.
Data masking helps by replacing sensitive information with scrambled or partial values—keeping data usable without revealing accurate details. Anonymization goes even further by permanently altering data so it can't be linked back to individuals.
Salesforce offers a Data Mask to protect sandbox environments, ensuring that test data isn't customer data. But for real-time data masking in live environments, you'll need third-party tools like Flosum.
Controlling who sees what helps you reduce the risk of accidental leaks or insider threats while keeping your data secure.
6. Conduct Regular Salesforce Security Health Checks
Security settings can weaken over time due to system changes, new integrations, or evolving threats. Without regular reviews, unnoticed vulnerabilities can leave your Salesforce data exposed.
Salesforce's Security Health Check tool helps you assess your organization's security settings, such as password policies, session timeouts, and clickjack protection, against Salesforce's recommended best practices. It provides a score and actionable insights to fix potential weaknesses.
7. Train Users & Enforce Security Awareness
Your security is only as strong as your least informed user. Even with the best security measures, human error, like weak passwords, phishing clicks, or accidental data sharing, remains one of the biggest threats to Salesforce data security.
- Conduct regular training sessions to help employees recognize security risks, follow best practices, and stay updated on evolving threats.
- Enforce security awareness through phishing simulations, role-based training, and transparent data handling policies.
This helps turn your users into a strong defense instead of a weak link.
Choosing the Right Data Security Solutions, Software, and Tools
Strong data security policies are essential, but no system is completely protected without the right tools.
With evolving threats, changing compliance requirements, and the risk of human error, businesses need a proactive approach to Salesforce data security that combines innovative strategies with powerful technology.
Flosum's Trust Center is a 100% Salesforce-native data security platform designed to do just that. It provides zero-trust security, real-time monitoring, and automated compliance for SOX, GDPR, and HIPAA frameworks.
With role-based access control, audit logging, data masking, and more, Flosum helps businesses safeguard sensitive information while keeping complete control within Salesforce.
Flosum Trust Center: Key Features
- Org Monitoring: Stay on top of your security with automated scans that check your Salesforce org against predefined security templates. Instantly spot and fix violations and get a consolidated view of all org settings for better enforcement.
- Data Masking: Protect sensitive customer data with automated masking. Every time your Salesforce environment is refreshed, sensitive data is anonymized—so developers and testers can work with realistic datasets without compromising security.
- Audit Trails: Track every change happening within your Flosum-connected Salesforce org. From component updates to process tweaks and customizations, everything is logged and easily accessible in a centralized UI.
- Metadata Reporting: Need to compare different Salesforce orgs? Quickly spot differences, manage audit compliance, and ensure consistency across development, testing, and production environments—all while keeping your configurations aligned.
Stay ahead of security threats—explore Flosum's Trust Center and take control of your Salesforce data security today.
FAQs
1. What is data security in Salesforce?
Data security in Salesforce refers to the measures and controls to protect sensitive information from unauthorized access, breaches, and data loss. It includes access controls, encryption, monitoring, and compliance tools to safeguard customer and business data within the Salesforce platform.
2. What are the four types of security in Salesforce?
Salesforce security is categorized into four main types:
- Object-Level Security – Controls access to entire objects (e.g., Accounts, Contacts)
- Field-Level Security – Restricts visibility of specific fields within an object
- Record-Level Security – Determines which records users can view, edit, or delete based on sharing rules
- Network Security – Includes IP restrictions, login controls, and encryption to prevent unauthorized access
3. How does Salesforce keep data secure?
Salesforce secures data through multiple layers of protection, including:
- User Access Controls – Profiles, Permission Sets, and Role Hierarchies ensure users only access necessary data.
- Encryption – Salesforce Shield Platform Encryption secures data at rest, while TLS encryption protects data in transit.
- Monitoring & Auditing – Tools like Event Monitoring and Field Audit Trail help track data changes and detect anomalies.
- AI & Threat Detection – Security Center and Data Detect use AI to identify suspicious activities and potential threats.
4. What are the three types of data security?
Data security is generally divided into three categories:
- Confidentiality – Ensures that only authorized users can access sensitive information
- Integrity – Prevents unauthorized alterations or corruption of data
- Availability – Ensures data is accessible to authorized users when needed, preventing downtime or loss
Interested in learning more about how Flosum can help you streamline your Salesforce DevOps processes? Connect with an expert for a demo today!
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