Rich Text Editors in Regulated Industries: A Business Leader’s Guide

Software has grown more interconnected. While this expands possibilities for applications and enables new capabilities, it does increase risks. Each piece of the software supply chain can become a potential source of compliance risk.

This includes the tools your teams use to create content. Rich text editors let people share updates internally, reach prospects externally, and communicate with customers. If this layer is weak, it leaves your organization open to potential data breaches, audit failures, and resulting compliance exposure or fines.

In regulated industries like healthcare, finance, or government, choosing the right rich text editor isn’t just a development or UI consideration: it’s a compliance choice.

#The increasing urgency

Security and compliance have always mattered, but the costs have continued to rise sharply. The estimated cost of a data breach reached nearly $5 million per incident according to IBM and Ponemon Institute, and these yearly reports have shown that those in regulated industries face even greater costs because security incidents often trigger investigations and compliance fines. Plus, compliance burdens are increasing from new SEC rules in the US regarding cyberbreach disclosures to intensified enforcement around GDPR.

These consequences reach far beyond fines. Incidents can lead to:

• Reputational damage

• Customer churn

• Increased scrutiny from regulators

• Operational disruption

Making matters worse, even when the issue stems from a third-party vendor in your software supply chain, your organization still bears a regulatory burden. That makes it essential to maintain oversight not only of your own code, but of every component you choose to integrate.

#Why regulated industries require specialized rich text editors

Some reports have suggested that north of 75% of software vendors experience supply chain attacks in a year. Each represents a reputational threat due to data loss, and in regulated industries, such incidents can also lead to compliance investigations and fines.

Rich text editors are central components for any application that creates data or content, and that’s pretty much every application. This makes the security and compliance of the editor you choose in a regulated industry essential to your business strategy. Getting it right leads to:

• Minimizing business risk

• Reducing development costs (and total costs of ownership)

• Greater trust in your own supply chain (and less required oversight)

Many security leaders admit their supply chain is a major blind spot. If you’re a business leader in a regulated industry, you need oversight and to understand the major challenges in each part of the chain, including your rich text editors.

#The core challenges in rich text editor compliance

While each regulation has its own specifics, they’re built around the same core objectives. When evaluating your rich text editor component, you’ll want to check against these goals to minimize risk:

#Security and data privacy

Regulations like HIPAA, FINRA, FERPA, and GDPR all emphasize strong security controls. Because rich text editors process sensitive information, any gaps in how data gets stored, transferred, or sanitized can create downstream audit risks.

#Auditability

Regulatory agencies want transparency. If there’s a breach, you need to show what happened, who was involved, and what steps you took to remain compliant. A strong rich text editor offers features like versioning, logging, and change history to help with potential audits. This is especially critical in applications that support collaboration.

#Accessibility

Many regulations require you to meet accessibility standards like US Section 508 or WCAG. If your editor isn’t accessible, then your broader application won’t be accessible. Make sure to choose a rich text editor that takes accessibility seriously to avoid any potential liabilities.

#Consistency and content governance

Regulated environments require predictable, structured content. Features like enforced semantic markup support accessibility, strengthen auditability, and reduce errors. Without them, content becomes harder to control and introduces operational and compliance risk.

#Strategic benefits of rich text editor compliance

A compliant rich text editor plays a role in your strategic infrastructure. It’s where people create, store, and share data, which means gaps can quickly turn into security incidents and downstream compliance risks. Choosing the right editor can help you:

• Reduce regulatory exposure by eliminating a source of data leakage and compliance failure.

• Lower long-term operating costs through fewer incidents, fewer workarounds, and less unplanned rework.

• Offer greater operational predictability with fewer surprises during audits.

• Increase development velocity because teams won’t have to continuously update unstable or non-compliant components.

• Optimize maintenance overhead with regular patches that close potential compliance risks or security vulnerabilities, thus lowering total cost of ownership.

Your rich text editor is a critical component of your applications or products, and so choosing the right one is a strategic choice for your broader organization. It provides a dependable foundation for growth, allowing teams to build confidently without managing constant exceptions or revalidation work.

#What “rich text editor compliance” really means

To this point, this post has covered the stakes. But what does it mean to have a compliant rich text editor? At a high level, rich text editor compliance comes down to two points: your vendor’s operational maturity and capabilities, and the editor’s technical controls.

#Operational requirements

For business leaders, the most important element to evaluate is the vendor behind the rich text editor. You’re choosing a long-term business partnership with your vendor who will handle a sensitive part of your application, so it’s crucial to get this part right. Here are some things to consider:

• Vendor reliability: How long has the vendor been around? Do they have strong reviews? Choosing a well-reviewed vendor with a long operating history lowers your long-term risk.

• Long-term support: A good provider will offer clear support channels, compliant feature updates, and regular maintenance updates. Some even offer long-term support editions that offer years-long stability by trading off some new features for predictability and control.

• Documentation: Your development teams need accurate, up-to-date documentation to implement, extend, and troubleshoot the editor efficiently. It’s worth having your technical team review and test the documentation quality.

• Security audits and certifications: A strong rich text editor will have passed rigorous certifications, such as SOC 2 Type 2, that show the team takes security measures seriously.

Accessibility built into the editor: Editors should follow standards such as WCAG or Section 508 to keep applications accessible and compliant with regulations like the European Accessibility Act (EAA).

#Technical and security requirements

While vendor maturity is critical, your engineering and security teams will also need to evaluate technical controls. You’re trusting users with sensitive data, so it’s critical to have features that prevent the introduction of vulnerabilities and provide accountability.

• Sanitized output: This cleans content created in the editor so users can’t unintentionally introduce vulnerabilities, helping prevent breaches.

• Secure HTML and content filtering: This limits the permitted code in a system that users can enter, helping prevent the introduction of unsafe or non-compliant content.

• Role-based access: This aligns editor permissions with your broader access-control policies to protect sensitive information. It prevents unauthorized users from accessing data they don’t need, further reducing your attack surface.

• Versioning and audit logs: This helps you capture who changed what and when, which is critical for audits and demonstrating compliance.

• Cloud vs on-premise considerations: This supports data-residency requirements and lets you choose where regulated data is stored and processed.

#CKEditor is the gold standard for rich text editors in regulated industries

Most editors weren’t designed for regulated industries and often fall short when the rubber meets the road. CKEditor stands out among rich text editors because it pairs a strong, secure plugin-based architecture with long-term operational maturity.

Here’s why it outperforms other rich text editors:

#Long-term stability

CKEditor was founded more than 20 years ago, offering operational maturity and product continuity that reduce long-term risk. You won’t choose a short-lived component: You’re adopting a rich text editor from a battle-tested, proven organization.

#Rigorous security and accessibility

CKEditor undergoes regular security audits, including being SOC 2 Type 2 certified. Plus, the editor is built for accessibility, aiming to conform to both WCAG A and AA, helping with the European Accessibility Act (EAA) and US Section 508. Its open source core also benefits from broad community review, providing an additional layer of scrutiny alongside formal security processes.

#A plugin-based architecture

Compliance rules dictate that you know all of the code you ship. CKEditor’s plugin-based design lets you enable only the features you need to keep your compliance landscape tightly controlled. This reduces your attack surface, simplifies reviews, and helps teams avoid introducing unnecessary complexity or non-compliant functionality.

#Backward compatibility that protects long-term compliance

In regulated environments, disruptive product updates require new reviews, regression testing, and documentation. CKEditor maintains backward compatibility across versions, minimizing revalidation work and lowering the ongoing cost of staying compliant.

These elements make CKEditor one of the few editors on the market capable of serving organizations across regulated industries.

#How to Evaluate a Rich Text Editor for Compliance

This post has already covered a lot in terms of rich text editor compliance. How do you put it all together? What should you look for? This section will sum up the main points and offer a quick checklist for each.

#Must-Have Criteria

First off, there are a few major elements that must be present.

Criteria	What to look for
Security certifications	SOC 2 Type 2 compliance
Documented processes	Strong Trust Center with published security controls
Compatibility with industry-specific regulations	View security controls or compliance certifications (and have your security team review)
Accessibility compliance	Review any published VPAT report
Data flow transparency	Documentation on where data is processed, local editor storage, and any cloud components or telemetry
Deployment flexibility	Check for the ability to deploy SaaS, on-prem, or hybrid

#Future-Proofing & Scalability

Criteria	What to look for
Plugin architecture	Modular features you can enable or disable, stable APIs for long-term customization
Vendor roadmap	Ongoing investments, predictable updates, and long-term support
Support for structured content	Tools for schemas, semantic markup, custom data models, and the ability to enforce structure across regulated workflows
AI-assisted authoring considerations	Embedded AI with opt-in/opt-out controls aligned with your compliance requirements

#CKEditor is the trusted solution for regulated environments

As critical components in the software supply chain, rich text editors sit squarely within your compliance risk surface. A failure in the rich text editor means a failure in your application or product, so getting it right matters for maintaining your regulatory compliance.

CKEditor takes compliance and security seriously. With more than two decades in the business, CKEditor has staked its claim as an enterprise-grade rich text editor that remains reliable for both small organizations and enterprises. Working across this wide customer base, they have a strong foundation in both enterprise security and compliance, with certifications across SOC 2 Type 2 and WCAG.

Learn how CKEditor can fit within your compliance landscape by discussing your needs with the team.