Your CRM, whether it’s Salesforce, HubSpot, or a custom-architected build, is no longer just a digital Rolodex. In 2026, it is an undisputed heartbeat of your business. It holds every name, every deal, every sensitive contract, and every strategic pivot your company has ever recorded. It is the single source of truth for your revenue and your customer trust.

But here is the cold, hard truth… because your CRM is a goldmine, it is also a primary target for sophisticated threat actors. We saw a massive spike in "integration-based" attacks, namely from ShinyHunters taking advantage of compromised oAuth tokens. Hackers are no longer just trying to guess your password… they are finding "back doors" through simple browser extensions, abandoned API keys on public GitHub repositories, or even some unsecure rogue sales-enablement tools.

When that door gets kicked in, you don’t want to be "figuring it out" on the fly. You want to be executing a battle-tested plan. Here is how to build a CRM Incident Response (IR) strategy that protects your data and your reputation.

Most admins believe they have a plan until the screen goes red and the CEO is standing at their desk. To move from a reactive state to a proactive security posture, you must be able to answer "Yes" to these six questions.

A "formal" process is one that exists on paper (or a shared secure drive), not just in your head. It should outline exactly what happens in the first 15, 30, and 60 minutes of a suspected breach. Without a documented workflow, people panic, and panic leads to mistakes, like deleting logs that are needed for forensic analysis. I’ll post a follow up blog that gives a solid example of a beginner incident response document.

If a junior admin notices a suspicious login, where does that information go? You need a centralized system for logging and tracking these "near misses." Collaboration is key; security is a team sport. If your Salesforce team isn't talking to your IT Security (InfoSec) team, you have a silo that hackers will eventually exploit.

If Salesforce’s internal security team detects a massive data exfiltration from your instance, they will try to call you. If the "Security Contact" in your Org is a consultant who left in 2022 or an admin who no longer works there, that critical warning will go to a dead inbox.

Action Item: Go to your Company Information settings today and ensure your admin team and your security contacts are updated to a distribution list (e.g., [email protected]) rather than an individual.

What happens if you have to take the CRM offline to prevent further data loss? A BCP defines the activities, responsibilities, and procedures to handle unplanned service disruptions. It answers the hard questions: How do the sales reps track deals? How does support see customer tickets? Who is responsible for telling the different c-suite members?

Hope is not a strategy. You need automated tools—like Salesforce Shield, FairWarning, or Datadog,that monitor for "impossible travel" (logging in from Tokyo and New York within the same hour) or "report exports" that exceed a specific threshold.

Detection tells you there is a fire; investigation tells you how it started. You must ensure you are backing up your event logs. Whether you use OwnBackup, CloudAlly, or a weekly manual export, you need a historical record of what happened before the breach occurred. Logs within Salesforce can be ephemeral; external backups are your "Black Box" flight recorder.

Before you start clicking buttons and locking users out, you must perform a clinical analysis of the situation. Acting too quickly without data can sometimes "spook" an intruder into deleting evidence or accelerating their data exfiltration.

The first question is always: How much did they take? Look specifically for Mass Exports. If a user profile that usually views ten records a day suddenly downloads 5,000 leads as a CSV at 3:00 AM on a Sunday, your "Securi-Tea" alarm should be deafening.

However, you cannot see what you aren't tracking. This is why having Salesforce Event Monitoring or Shield (for Salesforce customers) is non-negotiable for enterprise-level security. These tools act as your "security cameras." A visualization tool or a SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) integration allows you to identify spikes that should cause concern. One query on the REST API? Probably a standard operation. One user querying the API 1,000 times in a minute? That is a breach in progress.

Was it a compromised password, or did a "shadow" integration leak its access token? This is where your architecture choices pay off. By setting up your Salesforce org to disallow Username + Password logins entirely and forcing SSO (Single Sign-On), you effectively kill credential stuffing as an attack vector. If the entry point was an API, you need to identify which Connected App was used and whether that app has "Refresh Token" capabilities that need to be revoked.

Containment is about stopping the bleeding. Think of this as your "Kill Switch." Once a threat is identified, the goal is to isolate the infected area without shutting down the entire business.

The most common mistake is simply changing a user's password, or even inactivating the user. In modern CRM environments, an attacker likely has an active Session Token. Changing the password doesn't always kick them out of their current session. You must Freeze the user account and Revoke all active OAuth sessions. This ensures that the attacker is immediately booted from all devices, including mobile apps and third-party integrations.

If the breach originated from a third-party app or a "rogue" integration, you must act decisively. Go to your Connected Apps Usage page and disconnect the service immediately. Do not wait for a vendor's support team to get back to you, sever the link at the CRM level first, then investigate the vendor's security posture later. Do not hesitate.

Once the intruder is out, the work of restoration begins. This is about more than just turning the lights back on; it’s about ensuring the environment hasn’t been "poisoned."

Sophisticated attackers don't just steal data; they change it. I have seen cases where attackers modify "Remit To" bank accounts or wire instructions within CRM records. Getting access to marketing cloud orgs allows bad actors to email entire customer databases, getting access to an org that has BYOK feature enabled could allow the org to be held for ransom. After a breach, run a report to check for any modifications to sensitive fields during the window of the breach. If you have a backup tool, perform a comparison audit between your current data and your last "clean" backup.

Every crisis is an opportunity for better security. If you were breached due to a weak password or a bypassed SMS-based MFA, use this moment to force a migration to Passkeys or hardware tokens (like YubiKeys). The organization will be more willing to adopt stricter security measures immediately following a scare.

You shouldn't wait for a fire to buy a fire extinguisher. Incorporate these three habits into your monthly security review:

If the worst happens and data is leaked, your first instinct might be to hide it. Don’t. In the current regulatory landscape (GDPR, CCPA, and the 2025/2026 updates), transparency is your best friend. Having a template ready to notify customers, showing them exactly what was taken, what wasn't taken, and how you have fixed the hole, is the only way to save your brand’s reputation.

Trust takes years to build and seconds to break. A strong Incident Response plan is how you ensure that even on your worst day, your customers know you are in control. Next week I will share an example of an industry agnostic incident response plan for Salesforce orgs.