Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) is an automated, data-centric approach to security that identifies where sensitive information resides, monitors who accesses it, and enforces protection aligned with regulatory mandates. Unlike infrastructure-focused security, DSPM protects the data itself as it flows across production environments, sandboxes, integrations, and third-party applications.

Salesforce provides robust security features—including classification, access controls, and encryption through solutions like Salesforce Shield and Compliance Center—but does not offer these as part of a unified DSPM framework. Enterprise deployments require DSPM to achieve comprehensive visibility and control across their Salesforce data landscape.

How DSPM Differs from Infrastructure Security

DSPM and Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) address different layers of the security stack. CSPM secures infrastructure configurations: making storage buckets private, enabling access controls, and enforcing network policies. DSPM protects the information within those systems by identifying sensitive data and governing its access and use.

In Salesforce environments, this distinction has practical implications. CSPM might confirm that an organization enforces multi-factor authentication and maintains proper network restrictions. DSPM reveals that protected health information exists within custom objects accessible to users who lack required compliance training—intelligence that infrastructure security alone cannot provide.

Understanding what DSPM protects clarifies why Salesforce environments specifically require these capabilities.

Why Salesforce Environments Require DSPM

Salesforce's architecture creates data security challenges that infrastructure protection cannot address. Data flows across production organizations, multiple sandbox types, AppExchange applications, and third-party integrations—each representing potential exposure points that require data-centric visibility.

Platform-Specific Vulnerabilities

Recent security research quantifies these risks. SecurityWeek identified five zero-day vulnerabilities and 15 common misconfigurations in Salesforce Industry Cloud. Dark Reading reported that Salesforce Apex misconfigurations allowed unauthorized data access on over 100 websites belonging to government agencies, banks, and hospitals due to insufficient security review of custom code.

Regulatory Exposure

Enterprise Salesforce environments face regulatory scrutiny across multiple jurisdictions. Four frameworks drive DSPM adoption:

• GDPR Article 32 requires pseudonymization and encryption of personal data, ongoing confidentiality and integrity of processing systems, rapid restoration capabilities after incidents, and regular testing of technical measure effectiveness.
• HIPAA Technical Safeguards mandate unique user identification, audit controls recording all activity in systems containing ePHI, person or entity authentication, and encryption for data transmission. HIPAA also requires 6-year retention of audit logs.
• SOX Sections 302 and 404 require 7-year audit trail preservation for financial data.
• CCPA Regulations require risk assessments before processing activities presenting privacy risk and independent annual cybersecurity audits.

Organizations implementing Salesforce without Field Audit Trail should note that native audit log retention is limited to 180 days—insufficient for SOX and HIPAA requirements.

Financial Impact of Breach Exposure

IBM reports that US enterprises averaged $10.22 million in breach costs in 2025, a 9% increase and an all-time high that is 2.3 times greater than the global average.

Several factors determine breach cost magnitude:

• Detection speed matters. Breaches contained within 200 days average $3.93 million compared to $4.95 million for longer breaches—a 26% cost premium for delayed response.
• Automation reduces costs. Organizations using extensive security AI and automation save $2.2 million per breach. Conversely, organizations with shadow AI face $670,000 higher costs on average.
• Credential compromise is costly. IBM's 2024 report found compromised credentials were the top breach cause, accounting for 16% of incidents with an average cost of $4.81 million. This finding is particularly relevant for Salesforce environments where credential management spans users, service accounts, Connected Apps, and API integrations.
• Third-party risk is expanding. Verizon's 2025 DBIR found third-party involvement in 30% of breaches, doubling from 15% the prior year.

These risk factors establish what DSPM must address. The following section details the specific capabilities that enable protection.

Core DSPM Capabilities

DSPM delivers four integrated capabilities that address the vulnerabilities, regulatory requirements, and breach factors described above.

Automated Data Discovery and Classification

DSPM identifies sensitive information across all Salesforce environments through automated scanning at scale. Salesforce's Data Classification tool enables this discovery, classifying data systematically through AI-powered tagging at the field level.

Consider a healthcare provider using Salesforce Health Cloud: DSPM scanning discovers that patient social security numbers exist in custom fields across numerous objects, with some objects accessible to users lacking HIPAA training certification. This visibility enables remediation before audit findings or regulatory violations occur.

Access Governance and Policy Enforcement

DSPM implements policy-based access control governing how users and services access sensitive data. Data Cloud documentation shows this architecture controls how Agentforce and other services access the right data about the right person at the right time while preventing sensitive data misuse.

Consider a financial services firm preparing for SOX audit: DSPM analysis reveals that 143 users maintain profile-level View All Data permission despite only 12 requiring this access. Automated access governance identifies these permission gaps and enables systematic remediation aligned with least-privilege principles.

Salesforce Shield provides complementary security layers: AES 256-bit Platform Encryption for field-level protection, Event Monitoring for user activity tracking, Field Audit Trail for access history with up to 10 years of retention, and custom security policies protecting sensitive data from internal and external threats.

Continuous Monitoring and Remediation

DSPM provides real-time security posture assessment evaluating access control effectiveness, encryption status, threat detection signals, and incident response readiness. This continuous evaluation enables organizations to identify and remediate vulnerabilities before they result in breaches or compliance findings.

Enterprise Security Integration

DSPM integrates with Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems by providing data sensitivity context, access patterns, and security misconfiguration data. SIEM tools correlate this information with security events for enriched threat detection and incident response.

Integration with Identity and Access Management (IAM) systems enables automated access permission changes to protect sensitive data. This integration is critical for Salesforce's complex permission model spanning profiles, permission sets, permission set groups, sharing rules, and manual shares.

These capabilities function most effectively when integrated into development and deployment workflows.

Implementing DSPM in Salesforce DevSecOps

DSPM brings data exposure insights into the DevSecOps lifecycle, helping developers catch risky data handling before code reaches production. Implementation spans four pipeline stages:

• Pre-commit static analysis validates data handling patterns
• Build stage checks evaluate security configurations
• Deployment gates prevent risky data configurations from reaching production
• Post-deployment monitoring detects configuration drift

Without this integration, organizations discover sensitive data exposure only after deployment—when remediation costs escalate and regulatory exposure has already occurred. With it, security is built into development rather than surfaced during audits.

For enterprise Salesforce environments managing SOX, HIPAA, GDPR, and CCPA requirements simultaneously, manual approaches to data security posture cannot scale. Request a demo to see how Flosum's DSPM capabilities automate compliance across regulatory retention requirements while reducing breach exposure across your Salesforce deployment.