Thousands of companies use Salesforce to monitor sales, maintain customer data, and analyze patterns through astute reporting and dashboard systems. Central to all these functions is data security, a key selling point for Salesforce. To ensure data security, various mechanisms are in place, including MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication). For Salesforce administrators and users, security is critical. Implementing security mechanisms requires strategic planning to avoid mistakes or mitigate them easily.
Ready to know about MFA in Salesforce? This guide covers the best practices that every Salesforce administrator or user should consider before deploying MFA.
A Salesforce administrator needs to understand how to implement MFA in Salesforce to avoid or easily correct mistakes. Here are the key best practices:
MFA is a security mechanism that should be implemented strategically. Developing a roll-out strategy requires understanding the company's size, business goals, and Salesforce products in use, as well as a full understanding of the company's operations. MFA goals vary according to various companies. Knowing this will help the administrator decide on the structure and execution of the MFA roll-out, as well as develop a strategy that works for your company.
While knowing your users might be impossible for organizations with hundreds of users, it is possible for organizations with small users. Your job as an administrator is to identify any stranger in your org. Knowing your users' emails will help you detect a stranger in your organization if there is a security breach. For organizations with many users, it is important to understand the emails or usernames of key users. Hackers have a knack for targeting users with the highest level of access. This set of users should be identified as administrators so that any change in their credentials can be easily identified.
Users with higher access levels should be authenticated before users with minimum access. These users are called "Privileged Users". Due to their position in the organization, they have access to more data than other users. Using Salesforce's role hierarchy, for instance, the Sales Manager should be prioritized before the sales representative in the MFA roll-out strategy. Sales managers have more access to records and can even access the records of the sales representatives under them by default. Some users must be prioritized in the MFA roll-out strategy due to their higher privileges. While you set up the MFA for privileged users, you can limit other users' access from the profile level.
A truth in cybersecurity is that it takes hackers less than 30 minutes to access your account if your credentials are not unique enough. When creating passwords for your users as an administrator, you should avoid popular passwords. Create unique passwords that do not have links to your users' public data, such as their names or dates of birth. This makes it uneasy for hackers to easily guess your users' passwords.
You may find MFA confusing if you are not an administrator. Hence, you should “train” your users to understand the usage and processes of MFA. More importantly, train your users to identify what a phishing email looks like. While it is unlikely that an intruder will gain access to your account due to the implementation of MFA, it is still important to be alert. To recognize phishing emails, check whether the emails have any of the following:
If the above mentioned options are there, chances are that your users are being targeted. In such a scenario, your users should alert you immediately. As the administrator, you can choose to escalate the suspicious activity to the Salesforce Security team via security@salesforce.com.
While it’s good to be deeply knowledgeable about implementing MFA in Salesforce, it’s also important to know about MFA problem resolution. An in-depth understanding of the process helps you easily resolve any issue your users bring to you.
Check your org’s audit trail and monitor the login history regularly.
MFA is an important aspect of Salesforce and should be handled with care. Authenticating your users is a comprehensive process designed to ensure your org’s maximum security. Administrators should thoroughly understand the process and roll it out strategically.
