How to Classify and Secure Sensitive Data in HubSpot

Data security is a top priority for businesses today, especially when it comes to managing customer data. With increasing data privacy regulations and rising concerns about breaches, it’s important to understand how to classify and secure sensitive data. If you're using HubSpot to store and manage customer information, it’s critical to know what data is considered sensitive, how to classify it, and what tools HubSpot provides to keep it secure.
In this guide, we’ll explore how secure HubSpot data is, how to identify sensitive data, and how to properly classify it to stay compliant and protect your business.

How Secure Is HubSpot Data?

HubSpot takes the security of your data seriously, offering a range of features to ensure your information is protected. By default, all data stored in HubSpot is encrypted both in transit and at rest.

• In transit: Data is protected during transmission between your device and HubSpot's servers using TLS 1.2 or TLS 1.3 encryption protocols.
• At rest: HubSpot uses AES-256 encryption to secure stored data. This is one of the most secure encryption standards available today.

For sensitive data, HubSpot offers an additional layer of protection known as application-layer encryption, which uses unique encryption keys for each customer. This ensures that sensitive data is even more secure, with restricted access based on user permissions and roles.

Additionally, HubSpot provides security features such as:

• Advanced authentication: Two-factor authentication (2FA) and inactive session timeouts ensure that only authorized users can access your account.
• Audit logging: Every action related to sensitive data is logged, giving administrators full visibility into who accessed or modified sensitive information.

How Do You Know If Data Is Sensitive?

Sensitive data is any personal or confidential information that, if exposed, could cause harm to an individual or business. It requires extra protection and is often regulated by laws like GDPR and HIPAA. To know if the data you're working with is sensitive, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Could the data identify a person? If the information can be traced back to a specific individual (such as a name, address, or identification number), it is likely to be sensitive.
2. Would exposing the data lead to harm? Data that could cause financial loss, identity theft, or discrimination is typically classified as sensitive.
3. Is the data protected by law? Data covered by privacy laws like GDPR or HIPAA is automatically classified as sensitive.

What Can Be Considered Sensitive Data in HubSpot?

HubSpot supports the storage and management of sensitive data across its platform. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Personal Identifiable Information (PII): Names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and other identifiers that can be linked to an individual.
• Financial Data: Bank account numbers, credit card information, salary details.
• Demographic Information: Gender, ethnicity, age, citizenship, and immigration status.
• Government Issued IDs: Social Security numbers, driver’s licenses, passport numbers.
• Protected Health Information (PHI): Health records or medical information protected by HIPAA.

Sensitive data often involves any information that could be harmful or legally impactful if it falls into the wrong hands.

What Customer Data Is Considered Sensitive?

Customer data that is classified as sensitive typically includes any personal or confidential information that requires legal protection or could negatively affect the individual if leaked. In the context of HubSpot, customer data that is commonly considered sensitive includes:

• Contact Information: Full names, home addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses, especially if paired with other identifiers.
• Financial Information: Payment details like credit card numbers or bank account information.
• Health Information: For industries dealing with healthcare or insurance, this could include patient health records, prescriptions, and other medical data.
• Employment Information: Salary details, employment history, or government-issued identification numbers used for background checks.

Businesses in regulated industries like healthcare, finance, and insurance must be particularly vigilant when handling customer data, as it often involves sensitive details that are protected by law.

What Is Considered Not Sensitive Data?

Not all data is considered sensitive. Non-sensitive data refers to information that doesn’t pose a significant risk if it’s exposed or shared publicly. This type of data is often less regulated and doesn’t require the same stringent protection as sensitive data. Examples of non-sensitive data might include:

• General business information: Company names, publicly available email addresses (like info@company.com), and office locations.
• Public marketing content: Blog posts, brochures, white papers, and other marketing collateral intended for public consumption.
• Aggregated data: Statistical information that is anonymized and cannot be traced back to any specific individual.
• Basic website interactions: General analytics data like page views, bounce rates, and time spent on a website, as long as it’s not tied to personally identifiable information.

While this data might not require the same level of protection as sensitive data, it's still important to follow best practices for data security to prevent unauthorized access or misuse.

How Do You Classify Sensitive Data?

Classifying sensitive data is essential for managing it effectively and ensuring compliance with data privacy laws. Here’s a step-by-step process for classifying sensitive data in HubSpot:

1. Identify the Data

The first step is to identify which data is sensitive. This involves analyzing the types of information your business collects and determining if they fall under categories like PII, PHI, or financial data. Data types commonly classified as sensitive include:

• Demographics (age, gender, ethnicity)
• Government-issued IDs (Social Security numbers, passports)
• Health records
• Financial data

2. Label and Categorize the Data

Once identified, sensitive data should be labeled and categorized within HubSpot. HubSpot allows you to create custom properties for sensitive data. These properties can be marked as sensitive and assigned additional layers of encryption for added protection.

For example, you might create a custom property for storing the last four digits of a customer’s bank account or a property for recording a patient’s medical record number.

3. Apply Security Measures

After classifying sensitive data, apply field-level permissions in HubSpot to control who can access, view, or modify this information. Only authorized users or teams should be able to handle sensitive data, and permissions should be regularly reviewed to ensure security.

HubSpot also provides audit logs to track all actions related to sensitive data. This helps ensure compliance and accountability by recording who accessed or changed sensitive data properties.

4. Regularly Review and Update Data Classifications

Data classifications are not static. Regularly reviewing and updating your data classifications is crucial to ensure ongoing compliance with changing regulations. This is especially important when your business expands into new regions or industries with stricter data privacy laws.

Classifying and Securing Sensitive Data in HubSpot

Understanding and properly classifying sensitive data is crucial for any business that handles customer information. In HubSpot, sensitive data is protected with top-tier security features, including encryption, permissions, and audit logs. By knowing what data is considered sensitive, how to classify it, and which security measures to apply, you can safeguard your customer data while staying compliant with regulations like GDPR and HIPAA.

Whether you’re dealing with financial information, health records, or personally identifiable information, following best practices for sensitive data management in HubSpot will help protect your business and build trust with your customers.

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