Taking Salesforce Security to the Next Level: What You Need to Know About Salesforce Shield

Taking Salesforce Security to the Next Level: What You Need to Know About Salesforce Shield 

In today’s data-driven world, ensuring the security and compliance of your Salesforce environment is more important than ever. That’s why our recent Lunch & Learn focused on Salesforce Shield—a powerful security add-on suite designed to give organizations enhanced protection, visibility, and control over their data. 

Unlike out-of-the-box Salesforce features, Shield must be purchased as an add-on. But what it offers in return is worth the investment: Field Audit Trail, Event Log Monitoring, Platform Encryption, and the newly introduced Data Detect tool. Together, these tools elevate Salesforce from a CRM platform to a full-scale, compliance-ready data ecosystem. 

1. Field Audit Trail: Beyond Basic History Tracking 

Standard Salesforce allows users to track changes to up to 20 fields per object and stores that data for 18 months in production. Field Audit Trail extends this significantly—tracking up to 60 fields per object and enabling indefinite retention of historical data. Admins can customize retention periods through the Metadata API and access archived data using SOQL and the FieldHistoryArchive big object. This becomes especially useful in industries where long-term compliance and traceability are non-negotiable. 

2. Event Log Monitoring: Visibility for Security & Adoption 

Ever wonder who accessed sensitive data, from where, and when? Event Log Monitoring has you covered. It gives organizations a window into internal behaviors—everything from login activity to API usage. For example, if a rogue employee tried to exfiltrate confidential data, this tool would surface unusual activity patterns and trigger alerts. 

The logs integrate well with dashboards and external monitoring systems. Plus, Salesforce’s Analytics Studio App enables users to build custom visualizations for performance, security, and usage trends—supporting both IT teams and business stakeholders in real-time decision-making. 

3. Platform Encryption: Protecting Data at Rest 

Data breaches can be devastating—and that’s where Platform Encryption comes in. Unlike Classic Encryption, which uses 128-bit AES, Platform Encryption utilizes 256-bit AES for stronger security. It protects data at rest across standard and custom fields, files, search indexes, and more. 

Salesforce offers both probabilistic and deterministic encryption. Probabilistic encryption provides better randomness (for stronger security), while deterministic encryption allows encrypted fields to remain filterable in searches. 

However, encryption comes with trade-offs. Encrypted fields can’t be used in picklists, formula fields, or some automation like flows and sharing rules. Testing is key after enabling encryption to ensure integrations and processes still work as expected. 

4. Data Classification & Compliance 

From HIPAA and GDPR to CCPA and PCI, organizations today face increasing pressure to secure sensitive data. Salesforce Shield helps companies classify their data into categories like public, internal, confidential, restricted (PII), and mission-critical—ensuring the right protection is applied where needed. 

Admins can apply encryption at the field level directly in setup. After selecting an encryption type and saving the settings, Salesforce begins encrypting newly entered data. A sync must be run to encrypt existing records. 

5. Key Management: Your Encryption Lifeline 

Encryption is only as secure as the key that protects it. Salesforce offers Salesforce-generated keys or bring-your-own-key (BYOK) options. Keys must be rotated regularly, stored securely, and tightly controlled. If a key is lost, recovering data becomes difficult—so it's crucial to maintain a secure backup strategy. 

Three potential outcomes if a key is lost: 

• Re-import the original key 

• Overwrite encrypted values with placeholder characters (irreversible) 

• Delete and re-encrypt data (resource-heavy and risky)