An Ultimate Guide to Data Security in Salesforce

As businesses increasingly depend on Salesforce to handle customer relationships, sales funnels, and confidential data, security in Salesforce is no longer a luxury. It’s a must-have. With growing concerns around data breaches, compliance regulations, and customer trust, ensuring airtight security within your Salesforce implementation is essential for sustainable growth.

Salesforce offers a wide array of built-in tools and configuration options to help safeguard your data. However, leveraging these effectively requires more than just awareness—it demands a clear understanding of best practices, ongoing risk assessments, and a proactive security mindset.

In this blog, we’ll learn what data security in Salesforce is and why it matters. We will also look at best practices for strengthening your organization’s security posture and actionable insights for boosting security across your Salesforce setup.

What is Data Security in Salesforce?

Data security in Salesforce is an extensive collection of features, systems, and protocols that safeguard the confidential data stored within the Salesforce CRM from data breaches, unauthorized access, and other security risks. Data security in Salesforce is classified into four levels: Organizational-Level Security, Object-Level Security, Field-Level Security, and Record-Level Security.

Organizational Level Security

Organizational-level security is the highest level of security in Salesforce that consists of extensive data protection measures. One of the primary objectives of this kind of security is preventing unauthorized access to confidential data. Salesforce’s powerful ‘Login Hours’ feature enables you to limit which users can access the solution during a specific time each day.

This is within Salesforce’s current capabilities to either allow or prohibit a certain login IP range from accessing the environment. Configuring password requirements and adding comprehensive security features like Salesforce Shield are also included in this security level.

Object Level Security

Object-level security in Salesforce is comparatively lower than organizational-level security. This level is a bit more granular with its limitations and setup methods. It is similar to a domain-level dataset, and its closest analogy would be a sheet or table in MS Excel.

Object-level security in Salesforce allows admins to limit access to specific data, preventing certain users from opening or altering the information in question. Before Salesforce’s Permission Sets were implemented, these permissions were initially configured using specific user profiles.

It is now advised to create a Permission Set or a Permission Set Group in order to eliminate the need for manually setting each user’s permissions. At present, you can create rule sets that, for example, grant access to the target information to all individuals in the workplace who have a particular job function.

Field Level Security

Think of a field-level security in Salesforce like a column in an Excel sheet – accessing one column doesn’t mean access to the entire file. This approach allows for fine-grained control over data visibility, enhancing both flexibility and security.

While Permission Sets and Permission Set Groups are the recommended tools for managing field-level access in Salesforce, these permissions can also be configured individually through user profiles for more tailored control.

Record Level Security

Record-level security is the most granular of Salesforce’s four security layers. It enables you to control access to individual records, like restricting visibility to a single row within a large dataset. While object-level and field-level permissions define what users can do with types of data (e.g., create or edit records), record-level security governs access to specific instances of that data.

To support collaboration while maintaining control, Salesforce offers four key methods for managing record access:

Organization-Wide Defaults (OWD): This sets the baseline access level for all users. Typically, everyone has the same access to a record, except the record owner, who may have additional rights.
Role Hierarchies: Access is granted based on a user’s position within the organizational structure. Higher roles automatically inherit access to records owned by users lower in the hierarchy.
Sharing Rules: Designed for broader access, sharing rules allow records to be shared with public groups, roles, or territories, enabling team-level collaboration without manual intervention.
Manual Sharing: For one-off cases, a user can manually share a specific record with another individual. While useful for exceptions, this method is not ideal for large teams or ongoing collaboration.

Best Methods for Data Security in Salesforce

Businesses progressively rely on Salesforce CRM to simplify their data collection operations. Maintaining effective security practices is critical to protect sensitive user data. Let’s explore key best practices to enhance Salesforce data security while maintaining integrity, privacy, and compliance.

Role-Based Access Control

Role-Based Access Control is a foundational data security model that enables scalable and customizable access control based on user roles. Each role defines a specific set of responsibilities and data access permissions to make sure that users only interact with the information relevant to them.

This model aligns with a hierarchical organizational structure, where varying access levels reflect each user group’s needs. When implemented correctly, RBAC can significantly enhance operational efficiency and security in Salesforce.

However, striking the right balance between strict access control and day-to-day flexibility remains a common challenge across many environments.

Data Masking

Data masking is a robust data security technique in Salesforce. It obscures sensitive data by modifying it with realistic, fictional information. It’s one of the most valuable practices to obfuscate financial records, PII, business details, and any confidential data that must be protected while still being accessible in daily workflows.

Salesforce Data Mask is a native tool designed specifically for this purpose. It allows organizations to mask or anonymize sensitive data in sandboxes for testing, training, or development—without losing data utility. This helps maintain realism in non-production organizations while keeping sensitive data secure.

Salesforce Data Mask supports multiple masking strategies:

Pseudonymization – Replaces real data with fictional but structurally similar alternatives (e.g., replacing actual names with fake ones).
Anonymization – Substitutes sensitive values with completely unidentifiable random data, making re-identification impossible.
Deletion – Removes data by setting fields to blank, eliminating any chance of exposure.

Data Encryption

It’s nearly impossible to find a modern security architecture that doesn’t rely on encryption, a foundational element in safeguarding sensitive information. Whether data is stored or moving across networks, encryption ensures that even if intercepted or compromised, the data remains unreadable and secure.

Data encryption practices vary depending on the state of the data:

Encryption at rest protects stored data using strong encryption algorithms like AES (Advanced Encryption Standard), ensuring data remains secure on disk.
Encryption in transit secures data while it’s being transferred between systems, commonly using secure protocols such as HTTPS or TLS.

Salesforce supports both types of encryption, but offers enhanced capabilities through Salesforce Shield, a premium add-on that includes Platform Encryption. This feature enables advanced encryption for data at rest at the field level, while still supporting critical Salesforce functions like search, workflow, and validation rules.

Salesforce Health Check

Salesforce Health Check answers the question – “Where do I start?” concerning security risks. It’s a helpful and effective tool that helps you analyze your Salesforce ecosystem for vulnerabilities and provides ways to rectify them.

As part of the SFDC security model, the analysis offers tailored insights into each business’s environment and security solutions.

Salesforce Identity

Salesforce Identity is a robust Identity and Access Management (IAM) solution designed to enhance information security while simplifying user identity management. It provides extensive authentication features, customizable access controls, and seamless integrations with external systems.

One of its core capabilities is Single Sign-On (SSO), allowing users to access multiple built-in and third-party applications using a single set of credentials. It supports standard protocols like OAuth 2.0, SAML, and OpenID Connect, and functions as both an identity provider and service provider, ensuring smooth integration with platforms like Google, Microsoft, and Okta.

Another key feature is Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), which adds a vital security layer by requiring two or more forms of verification for login. Salesforce offers its own Authenticator app, while also supporting trusted solutions like YubiKey, Google Authenticator, and Microsoft Authenticator.

Additional features of Salesforce Identity include:

My Domain – Custom-branded login pages
Identity Connect – Integration with Microsoft Active Directory
Centralized user and RBAC management
Audit trails and login monitoring

Final Thoughts

Protecting Salesforce data collection processes is essential and calls for a multifaceted strategy that includes proactive security, user education, and technical safeguards. By following fundamental security guidelines, acknowledging that security threats are constantly changing, and cultivating a culture of alertness, organizations can establish a safe environment for gathering and using data, safeguarding their resources and stakeholders’ confidence.

Our in-depth Salesforce consulting services will help you understand the fundamentals of data security in Salesforce and how to protect sensitive data. Contact us today to learn how to manage profiles, roles, and sharing settings like a pro!

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