You have taken months developing, or tailoring your CRM system. Everyone is excited and the stakeholders are waiting to know when their turn can be to use it, and the day of launch is already circled in everyone’s calendar. The thing is though, you should do a comprehensive security audit before you turn that switch and provide hundreds (or thousands) of users with access to sensitive customer data. Do without this, and you are practically inviting trouble at the front door.
A pre-launch security audit is not being paranoid. It's about being responsible. Contact information, purchase histories, payment information and, in some cases, even personal identification data—some of the most useful information your business has—is stored in the CRM systems. In case of post-launch mishaps, it may lead to embarrassing data breaches or even a severe penalty by the government. The good news? A majority of the security problems can be avoided provided that you detect them at an earlier stage before they are put into production.
Implementing Strict User Permissions and Role-Based Access Control
The initial aspect to look into is access control. This is a common failure point of CRM projects as teams work so hard to implement functionality that they do not even bother to put up permission controls.
One should begin by checking all the user roles that you created. Are your administrative settings necessary to your sales team? Are junior employees able to access or export complete databases of customers? Does it have super admin accounts with unlimited access to all accounts? Every role must be created under the concept of least privilege, giving users only the access they require to accomplish their tasks, and nothing beyond that.
Be particularly keen on any default accounts that you acquired alongside your CRM platform. Attackers are usually targeting these since the credentials are usually documented publicly. Alter all default passwords, close old accounts, and enforce multi-factor authentication for administrative access.
Also, examine the situation when a person leaves the company. Is there a clear process of revoking immediate access? It is actually quite usual to find out that companies find ex-workers active on the CRM accounts even after years of their departure.
Verifying Data Encryption Standards and SSL/TLS Configurations
Encryption of data cannot be compromised and cannot be negotiated, yet, one should not just switch on data encryption and hope that everything is okay. You should also ensure that the encryption is really functioning properly at all the levels of your CRM system.
Ensure data is encrypted at rest and in transit. Data in your database must be safeguarded even when an unauthorized person accesses the server. Information flowing in and out of users to your CRM—or to external services—should be encrypted by powerful TLS certificates.
This is where testing is very important. When you are on a Windows platform, and need to check on certificates or ensure encryption options work as planned, you will want to download OpenSSL for Windows so that you can run command checks. OpenSSL also allows you to analyze chains of certificates, TLS handshake tests, and ensure that your security configuration is up to standard. It is a fast method of identifying problems such as expired certificates, insecure cipher suites, or poorly configured SSL/TLS interactions in production.
Backup encryption should not be forgotten too. Your backups that are taken every night must be as safe as your live database. Test your restore process to ensure that your encrypted backups can actually be recovered when required.
Securing Third-Party Integrations and API Endpoints
CRM systems in the modern world hardly exist in a vacuum. They integrate with email tools, payment tools, marketing automation tools, analytics tools, and dozens of others. Any integration poses a possible security threat.
List all the external services that your CRM is connected to. In each of them, ask: How is authentication done? What data is being shared? Is the connection encrypted? Will the third party satisfy your security requirements?
Access tokens and API keys should be given special consideration. Have they been locked up or are they lying in plain text configuration files? Are they of proper expiry dates? Would you be able to revoke them on the spot?
This is one area where experience counts greatly provided your CRM project entails some custom development work, particularly complex integrations or specialized features. Organizations that outsource custom CRM development services usually have the upper hand in this since there are experienced developers who know how to do integrations in a secure way from the ground up. They will appropriately authenticate flows, cleanse data in integration boundaries, and include monitoring in the connections such that you are informed instantly whenever something is amiss.
Conducting Vulnerability Assessments and Penetration Testing
Scanning tools are useful and automated tools are worth it; however, they are only the beginning. Conduct a thorough vulnerability scan to detect the common vulnerabilities such as SQL injection points, cross-site scripting vulnerabilities, dependencies that are not updated, and exposed administrative interfaces.
After you get such results, do not simply correct the high severity items and proceed. Read each and every item on the list and know why it is an issue. There are so-called low-priority vulnerabilities whose presence turns into a critical issue when combined with other vulnerabilities of the system.
Assuming that you can afford to spend, it is best to have someone perform penetration testing. An expert security worker will treat your CRM as an attacker would to find new ways of bypassing authentication, becoming a privileged user, or scraping information. They will tend to discover problems that an automated tool will not identify since they are familiar with the way in which various vulnerabilities can be linked.
Establishing Security Logging, Monitoring, and Incident Response Protocols
Security does not stop at launch, it is a continuous process. Adequate logging and monitoring should be in place before going live.
The CRM ought to make note of key security events: successful and unsuccessful login, permission modification, data export, administrative operations, as well as API use. Such logs must be safely stored sufficiently so that they may be used when investigations are involved.
Have warning systems on suspicious activity. In the case a person tries to log in at a suspicious place, makes several unsuccessful attempts to enter a password, or suddenly transfers a huge amount of data, you have to be aware of it in a second.
Equally significant is the ability to create a plan of action in the occurrence of something wrong. Who is informed in case of a security incident? How can the affected systems be isolated? How will you interact with the users and stakeholders? Record these steps now, when you are calm and in your right state of mind to think, and not attempting to work out their mechanics in a crisis.
Your Essential Pre-Launch CRM Security Checklist
The following is a checklist that you can use in your case:
- All default passwords are modified and stored in a secure place.
- Roles assigned to users with the suitable levels of permission.
- Admin accounts are required to use multi-factor authentication.
- Database, transmissions, and backup data encryption verified.
- Any integrated third party reviewed as secure.
- Credentials and API keys are stored in a secure location and with proper access controls.
- Vulnerability scans have been done and vital problems solved.
- Security logging on and security monitoring alerts on.
- Procedures on incident response are documented and trained to the team.
- The dates of the expiration of the certificates were tracked with the renewal reminders.
Go through this checklist in order and make a note of what you find. In case you find something wrong, document not only how and where you found something, but what you did to repair it. This documentation will be very precious when the regulator poses questions or when you are required to do further auditing.
