Security Best Practices for Startups

In today's digital age, a startup's success isn't just determined by its innovative solutions but also by its commitment to security. From the foundational step of installing SSL certificates to the nuances of data compliance laws, this comprehensive guide lays out essential cybersecurity practices for startups. Dive into a checklist that covers every corner, from encrypting data in transit to ensuring your team is security-aware. Remember, a breach isn't just a technical glitch; it's a dent in your brand's trust. Equip yourself and your startup with the knowledge to build a fortified digital fortress.

Here are some tips:

Install SSL for all of your public-facing sites/apps.

Encrypt at rest, and in transit.

Use cloud-based providers instead of hosting your own infrastructure.

Use Duo or Two-Factor Authentication whenever possible.

When sharing passwords with employees, share over secure channels, split the pass into parts, and share the parts over multiple channels.

Be careful not to commit private keys and passwords, and use tools like the ones from this article to prevent this from happening, or audit your repositories.

Back up your data often, create a schedule for it.

Make it a habit for your employees to not store any private or sensitive data on their local machines.

When onboarding new team members or users do not give anybody more access than they actually need. Create one admin or handful of admins and make sure they guard their access/password with their life.

Keep your server OS, machine OS, and all software up-to-date.

Audit any code packages or libraries for security vulnerabilities every once in a while using tools like npm-audit and pip-audit. If such packages are found to be guilty, find another library. Most languages should have such auditing tools; not just Javascript and Python.

Use a password manager like the ones from this list and/or enforce strong/complicated passwords.

Understand common attacks such as phishing, cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injections, distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS), or cross-site request forgery attacks (CSRF).

Understand data compliance and privacy laws that may be relevant to you such as GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, COPPA etc.

Create a strong privacy policy and terms of service that protects you and your users.

Use a VPN in places with public wifi such as coffee shops or airports.

Only collaborate with third parties that take security seriously.

Install great antivirus software across all your machines and servers. Make sure the antivirus also provides a firewall that can check to make sure any new downloads or internet requests are clean.

When the team is small, have everyone be aware of security and have a best-practices document that everyone reviews often.

As the team grows have someone own security like the CTO and have them hold everyone else accountable.

Make security exciting by hosting fun security games, hackathons, show-and-tells, and getting employees to talk about security more often.