IT compliance teams face a critical gap between periodic security audits and the ongoing pace of platform changes. Salesforce environments evolve daily through metadata modifications, permission updates and integration additions, yet standard assessment tools provide only snapshot visibility.

This disconnect leaves organizations exposed to configuration drift and undetected vulnerabilities between formal reviews.

This article provides a seven-phase methodology for conducting security posture assessments in Salesforce that aligns with NIST frameworks, addresses regulatory requirements and establishes continuous monitoring.

Use this approach to transform periodic evaluations into continuous governance by integrating technical controls and automated monitoring into a unified assessment framework.

Establish Assessment Framework and Regulatory Requirements

Before assessment begins, teams must understand which frameworks apply and what each requires. This foundation determines which controls to evaluate and establishes the criteria for measuring compliance.

Comprehensive security evaluations require alignment with multiple frameworks simultaneously. The foundation combines NIST Risk Management Framework methodology from NIST SP 800-37 Rev. 2 with ISO/IEC 27001/27002 principles, which includes regulation-specific requirements for each compliance framework.

Map NIST Controls to Salesforce Security Features

NIST SP 800-37 defines the Risk Management Framework for information systems. It establishes a six-step assessment process: Prepare, Categorize, Select, Implement, Assess and Monitor.

This framework integrates with NIST SP 800-53, which organizes security controls into 20 control families. These families address distinct security domains:

• Access control governs who can enter systems
• Audit and accountability track what users do
• Identification and authentication verify user identity
• Incident response manages security events
• System integrity protects against unauthorized modifications

Together, these control families provide comprehensive coverage across the security lifecycle, from preventing unauthorized access to detecting and responding to security events.

Regulatory-Specific Requirements

For organizations in regulated industries, compliance frameworks provide specific technical requirements:

• HIPAA requires audit controls to be implemented under 45 CFR § 164.312(b). The audit involves hardware, software and procedural mechanisms that record and examine activity in systems that contain electronic protected health information.
• GDPR Article 32 mandates technical and organizational security measures, including pseudonymization, encryption and the ability to ensure the ongoing confidentiality, integrity and availability of processing systems.
• SOX Section 404 requires documented internal controls over financial reporting. Section 802 mandates the retention of audit records for five years, while Section 103 requires seven years of retention for specific audit documentation.

Execute Seven-Phase Security Posture Assessment Methodology

A structured Salesforce security posture assessment follows seven distinct phases that move from planning through continuous monitoring. Each phase builds on framework requirements while addressing Salesforce-specific security controls.

Phase 1: Define Scope and Compliance Obligations

Scope definition prevents wasted effort and compliance gaps. This phase identifies which systems, data and regulations your assessment must cover.

• Assessment planning identifies which Salesforce environments, data classifications and business processes fall within scope.
• An incomplete scope creates audit gaps that expose organizations to compliance violations discovered only during regulatory review.
• Document applicable regulatory requirements, including data sovereignty restrictions, retention mandates and technical safeguards.
• Establish stakeholder responsibilities and secure administrative access for review.

Understanding scope requirements establishes what to measure. The next phase captures the current state against those requirements.

Phase 2: Catalog Current Security Architecture

Baseline assessment establishes your starting point. This phase documents the existing security posture before the detailed evaluation begins.

• Document user profiles, permission sets, permission set groups and role hierarchies.
• Map current configurations to recognized frameworks, including NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 and ISO 27001/27002 standards.
• Establish quantifiable baseline metrics, including Security Health Check scores, administrative user counts and authentication configuration states.
• Document the baseline as the current state profile required by the NIST Risk Management Framework.

With the baseline established, the next phase identifies what assets require protection.

Phase 3: Inventory Assets and Sensitive Data

Asset inventory reveals where sensitive data exists and who can access it. This forms the foundation for all subsequent security evaluations. Proceed with the following:

• Catalog all active users and their assigned permissions.
• Classify data fields and objects by sensitivity level, identifying fields that contain protected information. Without complete asset visibility, security teams cannot identify exposure points or validate that controls protect all sensitive data.
• Document custom code, including Apex classes, triggers, Lightning Web Components and automation processes.
• Map all integrations, including connected apps, API connections and middleware platforms, along with their authentication mechanisms.

With a complete inventory of assets and sensitive data in hand, the next phase evaluates whether existing security configurations adequately protect these resources.

Phase 4: Review Security Configurations and Access Controls

Configuration assessment evaluates technical controls against requirements and industry best practices, while organizations must enable multiple security protections.

Critical security controls include:

• Clickjack protection for Setup and non-Setup pages
• Cross-site scripting (XSS) protection and CSRF token validation
• Content sniffing protection and appropriate referrer policies
• Session timeout intervals aligned with organizational security policies

Authentication controls require particular attention, as session timeout intervals must align with organizational security policies while balancing usability requirements. These excessive timeout intervals can allow compromised sessions to remain active longer, increasing unauthorized access risk.

Permission analysis evaluates adherence to least privilege principles by reviewing user profiles for excessive permissions and assessing permission sets that extend access beyond base profiles. This review should also validate that integration users have API-only permissions to prevent interactive login.

Once configuration and access control reviews are complete, the next phase shifts focus to actively identifying vulnerabilities through security testing.

Phase 5: Identify Vulnerabilities Through Security Testing

Vulnerability identification combines automated scanning with manual analysis.

Salesforce Security Health Check compares configuration settings against baselines and produces scores from 0 to 100, focusing on configuration baseline comparisons.

Code security review analyzes custom Apex for vulnerabilities:

• SOQL injection vulnerabilities
• Missing sharing enforcement
• Insecure direct object references
• Insufficient input validation
• Hardcoded credentials

Data exposure assessment identifies publicly accessible information through Experience Cloud sites, guest user access and misconfigured sharing rules.

Phase 6: Score Risk and Prioritize Remediation

Risk assessment evaluates the likelihood and impact of each identified vulnerability. Using this approach leads organizations to prioritize what to fix, while continuous monitoring ensures fixed items remain secure.

Consider the attacker's motivation, the exploit's availability and the effectiveness of existing controls when assessing likelihood. Evaluate business consequences, including potential breach costs, operational disruption and reputational damage.

Faster breach detection significantly reduces costs, so organizations should establish detection benchmarks and measure the mean time to identify configuration changes that introduce risk. Continuous monitoring catches issues before they become breach vectors, reducing both financial impact and regulatory exposure.

Categorize findings using a risk-based severity framework aligned with industry standards.

• Critical issues pose immediate exploitation risk with severe business impact and require emergency remediation within days.
• High-priority weaknesses have demonstrated attack paths or violations requiring prompt remediation within weeks.
• Medium-priority items reduce overall risk exposure without immediate threat requiring remediation within months.
• Low-priority recommendations represent security best practices with minimal immediate exploitation risk.

This classification approach enables organizations to allocate remediation resources effectively by aligning them with business-criticality and compliance obligations.

Phase 7: Implement Monitoring and Governance

Point-in-time assessments become obsolete as configurations change. Continuous monitoring transforms periodic reviews into ongoing governance by detecting changes as they occur.

Event Monitoring provides real-time event detection and stores event data for auditing. However, Salesforce explicitly states that Event Monitoring log files are not a system of record for user activity.

Setup Audit Trail complements Event Monitoring by tracking specific security and sharing settings changes, password policy modifications, SAML configuration updates and Shield Platform Encryption setup changes. The Audit Trail represents an architecturally separate tracking system designed to capture metadata changes not covered by Event Monitoring.

The Setup Audit Trail provides only 180 days of configuration change history. Organizations requiring longer retention for HIPAA (six years) or SOX (seven years) must implement supplemental audit capture. Establish security metrics aligned with regulatory framework benchmarks as continuous security indicators.

Determine Assessment Frequency and Triggers

Comprehensive security reviews require consistent scheduling combined with event-driven evaluations. Organizations must balance thorough coverage against resource constraints while ensuring critical changes trigger immediate evaluation.

Establish Assessment Cadence

Annual comprehensive reviews provide baseline security validation for most organizations. These full-scope evaluations cover all seven phases and produce comprehensive documentation for regulatory audits. However, yearly reviews alone leave significant gaps between cycles.

Quarterly focused evaluations address high-risk areas identified in previous reviews, catching drift before it compounds into significant exposure. These targeted reviews concentrate on permission changes, new integrations and configuration modifications since the last review.

Monthly automated scans using Security Health Check and custom monitoring scripts provide continuous visibility between formal reviews. These lightweight evaluations generate trend data and alert teams to configuration changes requiring immediate attention.

Define Event-Based Triggers

Specific organizational changes warrant immediate security evaluation regardless of scheduled cadence:

• Major Salesforce releases: Each seasonal release introduces new features and may modify default security behaviors. Assess security configurations within two weeks of enabling new release features.
• Significant permission changes: Creation of new profiles, major permission set modifications or alterations to role hierarchy structure require immediate review to validate least privilege adherence.
• New integrations: Connected apps, API integrations and middleware connections introduce external access points requiring security evaluation before production deployment.
• Security incidents: Any suspected or confirmed security event triggers immediate review to identify exploit vectors and validate containment effectiveness.
• Mergers and acquisitions: Organizational changes involving system consolidation or new user populations require a comprehensive security review before granting access.
• Regulatory changes: New compliance requirements or updated regulatory guidance necessitate gap analysis against the current security posture.

Scale Assessment Depth by Risk Profile

Not all evaluations require equal depth. Risk-based scaling optimizes resource allocation while maintaining appropriate coverage:

• High-risk environments containing financial data, protected health information or personally identifiable information warrant a comprehensive review at every scheduled interval.
• Medium-risk environments supporting operational processes benefit from annual complete evaluations, with quarterly reviews of access controls and configurations.
• Lower-risk environments, such as developer sandboxes, require baseline security validation after refresh cycles and before promotion to higher environments.

Document assessment frequency decisions and triggers in security governance policies. This documentation demonstrates intentional security management during regulatory audits and provides consistent guidance for assessment teams.

Integrate Security with Change Management and DevSecOps

Security reviews cannot operate in isolation from organizational change processes. Changes deployed between evaluation cycles may introduce vulnerabilities that remain undetected until the next review. Integration with change management processes enables security evaluation as part of ongoing operations.

Automate Security Validation in Deployment Pipelines

Automated security validation integrated into deployment pipelines catches issues before they reach production. Static code analysis identifies vulnerabilities in Apex code during development rather than during periodic reviews. Configuration validation ensures deployments comply with established security policies.

Pipeline integration shifts security evaluation left in the development lifecycle, reducing remediation costs and preventing vulnerable code from ever reaching production. Teams receive immediate feedback on security issues while context remains fresh, improving developer security awareness over time.

Policy-based deployment controls enforce governance by evaluating policies before changes reach production. Automated deployment gates maintain traceable approval workflows and separation of duties while integrating directly into DevSecOps pipelines.

Effective security posture management extends beyond periodic reviews to include continuous visibility and automated enforcement of controls. Without automated controls, permission changes create compliance exposure that periodic evaluations cannot detect.

Maintain Documentation for Continuous Compliance

Static security documentation becomes outdated as environments evolve. Findings should feed into dynamic documentation systems that track current security posture alongside historical trends. This approach enables teams to identify patterns, measure improvement over time and demonstrate continuous compliance to auditors.

Documentation systems should capture current findings, remediation activities, exception approvals and compensating controls. Compliance documentation requirements extend beyond the implementation of technical controls to demonstrate continuous adherence. Maintain security policies, procedures and audit records in accordance with documented retention requirements.

Organizations must organize evidence systematically to enable efficient audit response and demonstrate a continuous compliance posture.

Transform Periodic Reviews into Ongoing Governance

Teams managing complex deployments face undetected permission changes and incomplete audit trails. These gaps create measurable compliance exposure that extends findings into production risk.

DevSecOps integration enables teams to enforce security controls directly within development workflows, reducing manual intervention while maintaining governance.

Manual processes cannot keep pace with daily platform changes across multiple Salesforce environments. Automated deployment pipelines with policy-based gates address these challenges through continuous deployment controls.

Request a demo to see how Flosum’s extended audit-trail capabilities address the security posture assessment requirements outlined in this methodology.