With a customer base of more than 300,000 organizations worldwide, Atlassian’s platforms—Jira, Trello, Confluence, Loom, and newer additions like Rovo and Compass—have become essential tools for teams to plan, build, and innovate. However, that expansive reach also brings significant responsibility: ensuring these tools remain secure in the face of an increasingly sophisticated cyber threat landscape.
“Atlassian is deeply committed to the security of customer data,” the company emphasizes on its Trust Center during an interview with The Readable. “We prioritize data protection by implementing robust encryption protocols for data both at rest and in transit, and we comply with global privacy frameworks like GDPR and CCPA,” added a company spokesperson.
At the heart of this effort is a security team of over 100 experts, stationed across key hubs in San Francisco, Sydney, Amsterdam, Bengaluru, Austin, Mountain View, and New York. Their mission is clear but formidable: to safeguard Atlassian’s cloud environment from end to end.
“Atlassian’s security team is among the most talented in the industry,” Chief Information Security Officer Adrian Ludwig stated in a 2024 interview with the press. “Our goal is not just to meet industry standards but to set the benchmark for cloud security practices.”
The zero trust mindset: “Never trust, always verify”
Rather than assuming users or devices are safe simply because they’re within the network perimeter, Atlassian has embraced a Zero Trust framework—a model that is gaining momentum among forward-thinking tech companies. As outlined in its Trust Center, “Zero Trust moves away from relying solely on user authentication.” Instead, every access decision is based on the user’s device posture and real-time threat signals.
To bolster security, Atlassian tiers all resources within its environment according to sensitivity, ensuring that only compliant, managed devices can access critical systems. The philosophy is straightforward: treat every access request as a potential risk, verify it thoroughly, and significantly reduce the company’s attack surface.
Designing security into every product
Atlassian approaches cybersecurity with the same rigor as product quality. From the earliest design phases, teams participate in threat modeling workshops to identify potential vulnerabilities and devise strategies to address them. Every code change undergoes static analysis tools and human peer review, all facilitated by an internal platform called Security Assistant.
The company’s “Peer Review, Green Build” (PRGB) model ensures that no new features go live unless they pass both code inspection and a completely clean build cycle. Additionally, Atlassian continuously updates trust scorecards across its product lines, enabling near real-time monitoring of security posture.
“Security is not an afterthought at Atlassian,” said Zak Islam, VP of Engineering, during the 2024 RSA Conference. “It’s a mindset that permeates every phase of our software lifecycle.”
Red teaming and bug bounties
Of course, no amount of planning can eliminate every threat. That’s why Atlassian has a dedicated Red Team, tasked with simulating real-world attackers by attempting to breach internal defenses through technical, social, and physical exploits.
“The Red Team acts like the adversaries we expect to face,” said David Cook, Atlassian’s Head of Security, during a talk at Black Hat USA in 2024. “Our job is to think like attackers and ensure that when real threats emerge, Atlassian’s defenses hold strong.”
In addition to its internal teams, Atlassian leverages a global network of ethical hackers through its award-winning bug bounty program, managed in collaboration with Bugcrowd. By incentivizing security researchers to test its platforms—and Marketplace apps—the company ensures its systems face continuous and rigorous external scrutiny.
Threat detection and incident response
Atlassian’s approach to monitoring isn’t just about identifying problems—it’s about catching them fast. Its Security Detections Program combines machine learning algorithms with custom-built detection rules to continuously scan for signs of trouble across its infrastructure.
When incidents do occur, Atlassian responds swiftly using a playbook-driven framework closely integrated with its suite of tools. Jira tracks incident progress, Confluence outlines the response steps, and Bitbucket is used to deploy patches when necessary.
“We take incident response as seriously as development,” the security team shared during a Trust Center briefing in 2024. “Detection, containment, learning—these are all part of the same feedback loop.”
Every security event, whether major or minor, becomes a learning opportunity, helping the team refine and sharpen its response for the future.
Protecting collaborative tools requires securing the infrastructure they rely on. Atlassian encrypts all customer data both in transit (using TLS 1.2 and above) and at rest (using AES-256). Its Tenant Context Service ensures logical isolation of each customer’s data, even within a multi-tenant cloud environment.
Under its Zero Trust model, only trusted devices that meet strict compliance requirements can access sensitive systems and environments. The company also employs daily Amazon RDS backups, regionally redundant storage across AWS, and physical security measures—such as biometric authentication at hosting centers—to deliver a comprehensive security strategy that combines digital and physical safeguards.
Staying ahead of vulnerabilities
No software is perfect, but Atlassian’s approach to vulnerability management ensures that issues are identified and resolved before they pose real risks. Every vulnerability is logged and tracked in Jira, with prioritization guided by strict Service Level Objectives (SLOs) based on severity and potential impact.
Continuous scans of cloud environments, dependency libraries, and containerized applications enable rapid detection of risks, while the external bug bounty program provides an additional layer of scrutiny. Atlassian views security not as a destination, but as an ongoing race.
“We know there is no finish line in security,” Adrian Ludwig emphasized during the 2024 CSA Summit. “Our mission is to evolve faster than the threats we face, and to help our customers do the same.”
