Your SMB Client Probably Needs a HubSpot Backup Solution
Nearing 20 years in business, HubSpot has become one of the most popular Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms serving small business customers with currently 217,000+ paying customers and over 6 million users. Most HubSpot users are SMB customers with91% of HubSpot customers having less than 1000 employees, paying an average of about $40,000 per year. And this segment is still in rapid growth mode over 23% YOY growth last year.
HubSpot is one of those applications that likes to get its hooks into everything. Used to its fullest extent it’s an incredible tool to manage customer relationships, manage lead generation, increase sales efficiency, and grow revenue. But it’s more than just a CRM. Many businesses who use it also use it for business automation and customer support. When it's working it's like magic. When it’s not working it’s an immediate crisis felt throughout the entire organization. And because the data it stores becomes so critical, businesses should consider third party solutions to protect it.
Why Protecting HubSpot Data is Important
HubSpot stores a wide range of customer and business data. Business records include Personally Identifiable Information (PII) like contact information, financial data, user activity and customer communications. The data is used to perform various business functions like lead management, sales transactions, and service requests. The use of the data is mission critical to marketing teams, sales organizations, and service departments. Much of the data is legally required to be protected. While HubSpot has some provisions for data protection and security, they may not be enough to ensure availability of service and maintain compliance.
Compliance and Legal Requirements for Protecting HubSpot Data
There’s an ever-increasing patchwork of regulations requiring protection of customer data and privacy in every region. Regulations like HIPAA, and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) have strict guidelines for the handling of and protection of personal data with stiff penalties for non-compliance.
HubSpot's Data Protection Measures
HubSpot does have some measures for protecting customer data, mostly within the context of their own data infrastructure and environment. For example, HubSpot encrypts user data in transit and at rest within their own ecosystem. HubSpot also performs regular backups of their clients’ data and in the event of a system-wide failure, data would be recoverable. In the event of user-deleted data, there also exists some ability to recover data within a day of the deletion.
Therein Lies the Rub
However, despite the (limited) backup capabilities provided, the Shared Responsibility Model makes it essential for companies to use third-party protection for sensitive data stored in HubSpot. HubSpot’s own terms of service state “no party will be liable for any direct, incidental, punitive, or consequential damages, or loss of profits, revenue, data, or business opportunities.” This is basically a long drawn-out way of indicating they aren’t responsible for business loss if something happens to your customer’s data, which is why your client probably needs a HubSpot backup solution.
Risks to HubSpot Data
The risks to HubSpot data are significant with several ways for data to be compromised. If an internal user deletes data, and the error is not spotted within one day HubSpot is not able to recover that data. The situation becomes even more dire if a malicious user gains access to the data. A motivated user could slowly delete or corrupt customer data over time, making it useless. By the time security teams catch on, it might be too late to recover it. A misconfigured third-party integration could accidentally overwrite thousands of records at a time, and there are thousands of applications that can integrate with HubSpot, not all of them well programmed.
Enhancing HubSpot Data Security in Customer Environments [Short List]
Organizations can take several steps to ensure data security and compliance in HubSpot environments. As your customer’s trusted IT advisor, consider bringing additional value to clients using HubSpot by educating them about:
- Multifactor Authentication (MFA): At a base level, some form of authentication protection like MFA or Single-Sign-On (SSO) should be implemented so that only authorized users can access the data in HubSpot.
- HubSpot Training: HubSpot is an incredible application with deep functionality – this translates into lots of ways for users to make mistakes. Hubspot also has an incredible library of learning tools. New users should be required to undergo HubSpot training to the level of proficiency necessary for their role.
- Ensure Proper Role-Based Access: Because of how comprehensive HubSpot is, user access should be strictly locked down by roles. For example, customer service reps should be able to view sales data but not modify or delete it. It’s recommended that organizations engage with HubSpot consulting organizations to ensure the proper settings have been implemented to prevent data loss.
- End-User Security Training: With the number of ways SaaS services can be compromised, users should be trained on how to spot things like phishing emails, unauthorized API connection requests, and how to spot AI generated connection scams. They should also be trained to watch out for any attempt to gain access to MFA codes.
- Perform a HubSpot Backup Regularly: Despite measures to protect data, there’s always a possibility that data could be corrupted or compromised. Organizations need to have a third-party tool like SaaSAssure to automatically backup HubSpot on a regular basis, while ensuring backup data is encrypted and protected with advanced authentication methods like MFA and Multiperson Approvals. Admins should be able to go back to any point in time to recover lost data.
Conclusion
>In the rapidly evolving digital landscape, the protection of critical business data within platforms like HubSpot cannot be overstressed. Adopting best practices for data security, such as multifactor authentication, user training, and proper access controls, in tandem with leveraging third-party backup solutions like SaaSAssure, represents a holistic approach to safeguarding HubSpot data. This strategy not only complies with legal and regulatory requirements but also fortifies the trust between businesses and their customers.
