Why Compliance and Security Matter in Salesforce Development

With so many teams running on Salesforce, there's a large market for customization of the end product to suit your company's processes best. When we start exploring customizing the product, specifically making code-related changes to optimize the platform, we can start running into security and compliance issues.

‍

Without the proper precautions in place, you put sensitive customer information at risk. When this happens, you're susceptible to data breaches, legal trouble, and losing customers over preventable issues. Let's dig into how to protect your data best when upgrading your Salesforce.

‍

‍1. Protecting Sensitive Customer Data

Developers should proactively mitigate data risks due to the sensitive content of what's kept and maintained in Salesforce. Most companies use these records to track personal and financial data for their customers.

‍

The mix of new (potentially unstable code) and highly sought-after data makes new feature deployments a target for cyber threats in some industries.

‍

The Risks Include:

• Unauthorized access to records.
• Data leaks due to misconfigured permissions.
• Exposure of personally identifiable information (PII).

‍

Best practices to protect your customers and their data:

• Implement role-based access control (RBAC) to restrict data access and deployments.
• Encrypt sensitive data. Preventative measures are key here both while data is in it's home (or at rest) and while you're transferring it.
• Regularly audit access logs and monitor for suspicious activities; when you're getting help on development, keep it detached from the whole system or be sure to vet developers well.

‍

‍

2. Ensuring Regulatory Compliance

If you're a Salesforce org, you know that Salesforce is required to comply with certain industry standards. Depending on the regulations of your specific industry, you might have more or less restrictions on what data measures you need to take.

‍

A few of the regulations you might have to consider are:

• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – Protects the privacy of EU citizens.
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) – Governs healthcare data security.
• Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) – Requires financial data integrity.

‍

How to Stay Compliant:

• Maintain detailed logs of data modifications and access.
• Ensure secure handling of customer requests related to data privacy.
• Regularly update security policies to align with regulatory changes.

‍

3. Preventing Security Breaches and Insider Threats

While many people can unintentionally expose data via human error, protecting your data from insider threats is important. We hope you're confident in the team you hire, but here are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to limiting human errors and minimizing the chances of insider threats.

• Overly permissive user roles lead to data exposure. Be sure you know who can access what and that they can only access what you want them to see.
• Lack of proper monitoring and anomaly detection. Having in-depth tracking in place helps limit people's ability to get access to too many things without you knowing.
• Insecure integrations with third-party applications. If you're opting to use integrations, be sure to vet them and their compliance/security measures, too.

‍

How to Mitigate Risks:

• Implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all users. Ensure your data is well protected by requiring additional authentication codes and verification before someone can alter things.
• Use Salesforce Shield for advanced monitoring and encryption. Focus on using tools that have been proven to work! No need to reinvent the wheel.
• Train employees on best practices and security awareness. Stay vigilant with your team to ensure they know what's fishy and what's normal.

‍

‍

4. Automating Compliance with DevOps Tools

When you're manually enforcing compliance, it's prone to human error! Automating these processes can increase DevOps efficiency and security from the get-go. As you think about finding an automated compliance tool, here are a few things to consider about what is beneficial.

• Use version control (Git) to track changes and maintain audit logs. Bonus points if you find a solution that automatically tracks all your changes in code and metadata/permissions to make rollbacks easy.
• Implement Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) with security checks. Using a system that will automate your testing and ensure that code is functioning as it should prior to being rolled out to prevent any security issues.
• Leverage tools like Blue Canvas for automated deployments with compliance enforcement. With automatic deployments, automatic testing, and version history, it's easy to know with confidence that the code you're rolling out will continue to protect the data that's important to you.

‍

Conclusion

You can't serve your customers well without protecting their data like it's your own. The good news is that if you take great care of your customers, they will trust you for a long time. By spending a little more time in the development phase, ensuring you're following regulations and keeping things above board, you'll be heroes.

‍

While you can manage changes like this with small teams focusing on role-based access control and proactive data measures like encryption, monitoring, and automated compliance, it will help your organization significantly enhance its security posture.

‍

Looking to streamline security and compliance in your Salesforce development process? Blue Canvas helps automate compliance tracking, enforce security policies, and simplify deployments. Get started today!

‍