Best Practices for Securing Data in Humanitarian Crisis Situations

By: Rakesh Bharania, Director, Humanitarian Impact Data, Salesforce.org and Alex Parker, Senior Platform Architect, Salesforce.org

The unfolding crisis in Afghanistan is a stark reminder that many Salesforce.org nonprofit customers often work in fragile environments. Whether involved in humanitarian response in conflict or disaster situations, development work, human rights, or peace-building, our international nonprofit customers have some of the most complex nonprofit missions on earth. In addition to the challenges inherent to any nonprofit mission, these organizations and their personnel must often work in areas with poor security and limited resources.

These fragile environments mean that those using Salesforce technologies have to take into account a whole set of additional potential threats, such as considering the theft or capture of trusted devices, or personnel may be forced to divulge login information under duress. And the potential harms resulting from the loss of data confidentiality, integrity, or availability may go beyond digital