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In 2025, over 43% of data breaches affected startups with under 100 people. The most common cause wasn't sophisticated hackers — it was misconfigured S3 buckets, secret keys committed to GitHub, or employees getting phished. Basic mistakes preventable at near-zero cost.
Minimum Security Checklist for Startups
Authentication: Mandatory MFA for all internal accounts. Never store plain-text passwords. Use OAuth/OIDC instead of building auth yourself. Secrets management: Never commit API keys, database passwords, or any credentials to git. Use environment variables and a secrets manager. Dependency security: Run npm audit or pip-audit in your CI pipeline. Subscribe to GitHub Dependabot. Data handling: Encrypt sensitive data at rest and in transit. Apply the principle of least privilege.
“Enterprise customers in the US and Europe will ask about your security posture before signing. If you don't have a security foundation, that's a deal blocker — not an edge case.”