A Complete Guide to Securing Unstructured Data in Salesforce

Last Updated on December 11, 2024 by Satyendra

Over the last few years, we have seen an explosion in the volume and variety of unstructured data, including emails, social media posts, documents, images, videos and more. All this unstructured data presents a challenge when it comes to both security and analysis.

Salesforce is a cloud-based platform that also offers services to improve customer experience. Organizations utilize Salesforce CRMs (Customer Relationship Management) for organizing customer data and support. Salesforce’s customizable dashboards, work processes, and applications enable businesses to modify the platform to suit their requirements. Unstructured data can be structured with the aid of Salesforce.

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Unstructured data refers to information saved in its native format. Because it doesn’t follow a predefined structure, unstructured data is relatively easy to collect and store. However, this lack of organization makes it challenging to process or analyze for purposes like reporting and automation. Additionally, unstructured data often includes large amounts of sensitive or personally identifiable information (PII), which presents significant security risks.

It has always been difficult to preserve unstructured data, where exponential data expansion can overwhelm backup solutions and put pressure on IT personnel to properly manage and safeguard it. Below are some of the major challenges companies face when it comes to securing unstructured data.

1. Managing Sensitive Information – Small and medium-sized businesses are more vulnerable to data breaches. There is a greater likelihood of cyber threats since unstructured data contains a lot of sensitive information. Increasing security measures alone won’t solve the growing risks to data security. For businesses to reduce political vulnerability, scattered information must be identified and consolidated into a single repository.
2. Regulatory and Non-Compliance Issues – Most enterprises, unfortunately, lack complete visibility into their unstructured data. Unstructured data is frequently a collection of private information concealed in email threads or documents. Unstructured data, such as medical records, bank statements, or official identification documents, can quickly turn into a compliance nightmare. Organizations are required by laws such as the CCPA, GDPR, and HIPAA to be fully aware of the location, access, and usage of their sensitive data.
3. Different Platforms – Unstructured information is dispersed among the many platforms and communication tools that businesses utilize on a regular basis. Emails, Slack chats, customer service tickets, SharePoint documents, and cloud databases such as Amazon S3 all include this fragmented data. When it comes to locating, protecting, and upholding compliance with sensitive data, each of these sources has unique difficulties. Organizations attempting to adhere to data privacy standards face major blind spots due to the decentralized nature of unstructured data across various platforms. Sensitive information is easily missed, managed improperly, or subjected to unwanted access in the absence of the right tools.

1. Data Classification – Sorting both organized and unstructured data according to their degree of sensitivity should be given high importance. Salesforce should classify data and assign the proper labels. Access controls and metadata tags provide an additional degree of security for sensitive data. 
2. Access User Permission – Salesforce gives businesses the ability to decide who can see, update, and delete data by giving them granular control over user permissions. File permissions can be used to restrict access according to user role and enforce restrictions on files and attachments. Users will only have access to the data and features required for their roles if you follow the principle of least privilege. To reduce the risk of data breaches, assess and modify permissions on a regular basis to reflect changes in roles or responsibilities.
3. Implementing Access Controls – Implement strong access controls like Role-based Access Control (RBAC) to safeguard unstructured data in Salesforce. It works by using roles, profiles, and permission sets to specify who can see or alter unstructured data. Field-level security is another technique that restricts access to particular fields so that only authorized users can see sensitive data. 
4. Data Encryption – Sensitive unstructured data must be encrypted both in transit and at rest to prevent unauthorized access. Employ industry-accepted encryption methods and key management protocols to safeguard data accuracy and privacy. Salesforce’s platform encryption is especially useful since it permits sensitive data to be encrypted without impairing the platform’s essential features. It implies that even while encryption is protecting your data, user experience, and operational effectiveness are unaffected.
5. Data Monitoring and Auditing – It is necessary to regularly monitor data access and activity logs to determine who is reading, altering, or exporting unstructured data. Unusual activity or any access patterns that might point to any illegal access or data leak should trigger alerts.
6. Educating Employees – Employees should receive training on data management best practices and education on the value of safeguarding unstructured sensitive data. Encourage employees to be security conscious and make sure they know their duties when it comes to protecting confidential data

Lepide’s Data Security Platform uses hundreds of pre-established criteria sets to find sensitive information in your unstructured data stores and link it to compliance requirements. Lepide also enables you to see who has access to sensitive data, and how they are using that access.

Numerous compliance criteria are extremely stringent and necessitate comprehensive visibility into your regulated data and user behavior. With pre-defined reports, real-time alerts, and risk analysis dashboards that we have specifically created to satisfy the most prevalent compliance requirements across all industries, Lepide makes unstructured data security a reality.

Schedule a demo with Lepide today to discuss how to secure your unstructured data. 

A significant portion of an organization’s data is unstructured, which presents significant risks if not safeguarded. Even though it can be challenging, protecting unstructured data in Salesforce is essential to meeting regulatory requirements and protecting sensitive information. By putting in place robust access controls, data encryption, and data classification, organizations can improve their data security posture. Businesses can benefit from Salesforce’s features while safeguarding their unstructured data if they have the right plan and tools.