By now, we all know how essential CRMs like Salesforce are for every step of the sales and marketing journey. While reams of customer data can help businesses close more deals, they also expose them to risks around data breaches and compliance violations that can potentially cost millions. These days, there’s a growing amount of sensitive customer data, which is why it’s so imperative to prevent unauthorized users from accessing it. In addition to protecting sensitive information, organizations also need to maintain a compliance-ready posture so they can pass audits. As data privacy laws keep getting stricter, the stakes for noncompliance keep rising.Imagine a scenario where an incorrect configuration ends up exposing confidential data. This not only leads to noncompliance and expensive breach notification requirements, but it violates user trust.If you’re interested in protecting your CRM data, it’s time to learn about the top Salesforce security tools that can help keep systems safe.What Is a Salesforce Security Tool?Salesforce security tools protect access to Salesforce, secure sensitive data, prevent data loss, and provide monitoring & compliance support. Sounds great. But where can we find these tools? There are two categories to consider: Salesforce native apps and third-party tools.Now that we’ve got the basics out of the way, let’s examine some of the top tools on the market today.Top Salesforce Security Tools to Know AboutNative Salesforce Security ToolsSalesforce gives us a decent head start with built-in security controls, but it’s important to understand what they actually cover — and what they don’t. These tools are best viewed as a baseline: they secure configurations, provide monitoring, and help prove compliance. But they don’t fully address data leakage, malware, or ransomware resilience, which is important to remember. 1. Security Health Check™Every Salesforce admin eventually lands on the Health Check dashboard. It evaluates your org’s security settings against Salesforce’s baseline standards, producing a score that feels a little like a credit report for your configuration. Password complexity, session timeout settings, and API access restrictions are all measured here.The advantage is obvious: it’s native, fast, and gives you a quantifiable benchmark you can act on immediately. The limitation, though, is equally clear. Health Check only cares about settings inside that one org. It won’t tell you if sensitive files are being shared inappropriately, if another connected app is siphoning data, or if you’re exposed across multiple orgs. In other words, it’s a thermometer — not a doctor.2. Salesforce Shield™Shield is Salesforce’s answer to regulated industries that demand auditability and encryption. It bundles together three heavyweight features:Platform Encryption for data at rest.Event Monitoring to track activity across logins, exports, and API calls.Field Audit Trail to extend Salesforce’s default logging and show historical changes.For compliance-driven companies, Shield is indispensable. It provides proof of due diligence and visibility into what users are actually doing. But it comes at a price — both financially and operationally. The add-on isn’t cheap, and even when you’ve bought it, you need staff and tooling to sift through event logs and respond to what you find. Shield generates data; it doesn’t remediate the risks by itself.3. Salesforce Identity™Identity focuses on authentication and access. It offers single sign-on, federated identity, and lifecycle management for users across Salesforce and external apps. By reducing password sprawl and tying tightly into Salesforce’s permissioning model, it helps rein in one of the most common weak points: inconsistent access management.But Identity is also a narrow lane. It won’t stop someone from accidentally exposing sensitive records through misconfigured sharing rules, nor does it address SaaS sprawl where shadow apps are quietly connected to Salesforce through OAuth. It’s an important piece of the puzzle, but not the whole picture.4. Security Center 2.0™As organizations scale, many find themselves running multiple Salesforce orgs — a scenario that complicates oversight. Security Center 2.0 is Salesforce’s attempt to consolidate governance. It gives admins dashboards that span across orgs, tracking security and compliance metrics in one place.This is a win for visibility and executive reporting. However, Security Center 2.0 is largely a governance tool. It surfaces information but doesn’t directly remediate risks like DLP leaks or ransomware exposure.5. Security & Access Manager™Finally, there are AppExchange-native tools like Security & Access Manager. These are admin accelerators; they make it easier to review, bulk-edit, and document profiles and permission sets. For teams that dread permission audits, this can save hours.That said, these tools aren’t built or supported by Salesforce itself, and quality varies by vendor. They help operationally, but they’re not closing fundamental security gaps.Third-Party Salesforce Security ToolsThis is where the picture gets more nuanced. Salesforce does a lot natively, but no platform covers every angle of modern security. That’s where third-party tools step in, each designed to address gaps that can leave your org exposed.Resilience and recovery is one of the biggest areas. Here you’ll find tools that go beyond Salesforce’s limited native backup, giving you full restore options and ransomware protection. The value is obvious: when something goes wrong — whether it’s accidental deletion or a targeted attack — these platforms make sure you’re not scrambling to rebuild critical data.Data protection and compliance is another category that’s hard to ignore. Tools in this space focus on preventing sensitive information from slipping out, whether through careless sharing or malicious activity. Many also help you stay on top of tightening privacy regulations by classifying and monitoring data in real time.Posture and configuration management fills yet another gap. Misconfigured settings, over-permissive access, and risky OAuth connections are among the most common causes of Salesforce breaches. Vendors here give you visibility into where your security posture is weakest and actionable guidance to fix it before it becomes a headline.Malware and file safety is another essential. Salesforce is a hub for documents, and every upload or shared link carries risk. Specialized tools here scan files and links at the point of entry, blocking malware before it spreads through your environment.Finally, it’s important to consider broad SaaS coverage and tool consolidation. It would be rare for Salesforce to be the only SaaS solution an organization uses, and implementing native security tools means logging into a separate portal to view and manage SaaS security. A smarter approach would mean consolidating into one, third-party solution to protect all of your mission critical SaaS with one solution.That said, different vendors take different approaches. Some go deep into one category, while others cover multiple areas at once. SpinOne by Spin.ai is a good example of the latter — it combines backup and recovery with cross-SaaS security and automated incident response. Beyond that, you’ll find specialized players for DLP, posture management, and malware defense, each designed to close specific gaps that Salesforce itself doesn’t address.6. Spin.ai for backup and recovery — and beyondSpinOne by Spin.ai goes far beyond simple backup. It provides daily automated backups of both data and metadata, point-in-time recovery, ransomware protection that detects ransomware attacks and enables rapid response, DLP, SSPM, insider risk management, third-party risk management, and more. For every category discussed in this article, SpinOne provides a strong solution as part of its platform offering. In other words, it’s not just a backup app; it’s a total data security and resilience platform. Unlike point solutions, SpinOne also integrates security monitoring and automated incident response across multiple SaaS apps, including Salesforce, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Slack.This breadth is key: SpinOne isn’t just an insurance policy for when something goes wrong. It actively shortens downtime, protects against insider threats, and helps teams avoid the operational drag of juggling multiple point solutions. 7. Data Protection and DLPData loss prevention (DLP) is a glaring gap in Salesforce’s native suite. This is where vendors like Spin.ai, Strac.io, Concentric.ai, and Nightfall offer strong coverage.SpinOneSpinOne includes strong DLP with visibility and control over data sharing, automated alerts and incident response, and integrated user behavior insights as an embedded capability in its overall data security platform. SpinOne’s 360° approach to protecting data gives organizations the ability to use a single policy engine across DLP, SSPM, SaaS ransomware prevention, third-party risk management, insider risk, and backups. DLP-specific solutions, but they often lead to the struggle many already have in protecting SaaS data effectively: vendor and cost overload. Strac.ioStrac.io scans Salesforce records, documents, and even unstructured files (like PDFs or images) for sensitive information. It’s designed for breadth: protecting Salesforce but also Slack, Gmail, and other SaaS apps in one policy set. That cross-SaaS coverage is valuable for enterprises where Salesforce isn’t the only crown jewel. The challenge? As with most AI-driven classification engines, fine-tuning policies to reduce false positives takes real effort.Concentric.aiConcentric.ai takes a more governance-driven approach. Its strength is not just identifying sensitive data but mapping it to policies and workflows. For example, it can flag when sensitive contract records are shared outside their intended audience. It’s a strong fit for compliance-driven organizations, though it’s lighter on real-time enforcement compared to tactical DLP vendors.NightfallNightfall delivers a faster, tactical play. With a simple OAuth connection, it scans Salesforce objects and attachments for sensitive data like credit card numbers or health records. Deployment is quick, and policies can be configured without a steep learning curve. The tradeoff is scale: Very large orgs with massive datasets sometimes struggle with performance and tuning. Also, this solution only offers DLP and light settings management, rather than taking a comprehensive approach to data security.Another notable tool in the data security and compliance space is Securiti.ai, which offers advanced capabilities for Salesforce.Securiti.ai for Data Security and ComplianceSecuriti.ai provides a comprehensive Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) platform for Salesforce. It automatically discovers and classifies sensitive Salesforce data, monitors user access, and enforces least-privilege policies. Beyond protecting data, it helps organizations automate compliance reporting, assess breach impact, and manage privacy operations efficiently. For enterprises with complex compliance requirements or multiple Salesforce orgs, Securiti.ai delivers centralized visibility and governance across the Salesforce ecosystem.8. Posture and ConfigurationThese categories are where SpinOne and AppOmni dominate. Both solutions detect SaaS misconfigurations and provide automated remediation, as well as discovering and assessing risk for OAuth apps and browser extensions seeking access to the SaaS, another key aspect of posture management. Both solutions plug deep into Salesforce to identify misconfigurations, excessive admin privileges, and rogue OAuth apps that might quietly siphon data. For companies juggling multiple orgs, or multiple SaaS apps entirely, these solutions offer a consolidated posture management layer.Where Health Check shows you a baseline inside one org, SpinOne and AppOmni reveals the attack surface across all your environments. AppOmni’s limitation is scope: It doesn’t do DLP or malware scanning, so it’s best paired with complementary tools. SpinOne, however, also offers strong DLP capabilities.9. Malware and File SafetyOne of Salesforce’s quietest risks is file uploads. Out of the box, Salesforce doesn’t scan files or links for malware. That gap is filled by WithSecure Cloud Protection for Salesforce. It intercepts files and URLs in real time, scanning them for malicious payloads or phishing attempts.It’s a narrow but critical defense — especially for industries where Salesforce doubles as a file repository.Features to Look for in Salesforce Security ToolsEvery tool has its own set of features. With so many options to choose from, it can be tricky to figure out which tool is best for an organization’s unique circumstances.So, what actually matters? First off: posture management and automated remediation. Translation: Don’t give me a wall of red alerts with no way to fix them. Give me a tool that sees the problem and helps patch it. Then there’s the boring-but-critical stuff: access controls and DLP. These are the locks on your doors and the guardrails on your balcony. You don’t notice them when they’re working, but you really notice when they’re missing.Another thing you have to think carefully about is having backup and restore that actually works.Everyone messes something up eventually (yes, even your “power user”). And if you’re wrangling multiple orgs? Ensure that the tool supports multi-org management under your plan and offers storage/location options that meet your data residency and compliance needs.The bottom line is to pick the tool that makes your Salesforce world safer and simpler.How to Choose the Right ToolHere’s the thing: Not every Salesforce security tool is right for your setup.So ask yourself a simple question: What are your actual risks? Is it sensitive customer data? Strict compliance rules? A lean team that’s already stretched too thin? Your answers here shape what kind of tool will actually help versus what will just look pretty on a slide deck.For most orgs, a mix works best. Lean on Salesforce’s native tools for the basics, then bring in third-party solutions for the heavier lifting — stuff like automation, DLP, or multi-org management. And whatever you do, don’t just flip the switch in production and hope for the best. Pilot in a sandbox first and validate RPO/RTO targets, alert fidelity (i.e., noise vs. signal), API usage impact, and recovery granularity for both data and metadata. Break things safely, then see how easy (or painful) it is to recover.Pay close attention to automation. The whole point is to save time — not add another dashboard that eats up time in your day. And don’t forget cost versus. payoff. Sometimes the “cheap” option ends up costing more in lost time than the premium tool would have.Finally, do your homework: Read reviews, watch demos, and make sure the tool actually fits how your team works. The last thing you want is to pick a tool that really doesn’t move the needle — or, worse yet, makes things worse.If you’re looking to lock down your Salesforce data and security posture, check out SpinOne for Salesforce and request a demo. It’s built to lock down your data and prevent security management from turning into a full-time headache. Share this article Share this post on Linkedin Share this post on X Share this post on Facebook Share this post on Reddit Was this helpful? Yes No Submit Cancel Thanks for your feedback!