The Essential Security Checklist for Seed-Stage Startups

A founder recently asked me: "We just closed our seed round. Do I need to hire a CISO?"

Answer: No.

You don't need a CISO, and you don't need enterprise-grade security appliances. You need to cover the basics that prevent 90% of automated attacks and negligence.

Here is the minimalist security checklist I give to Seed/Series A startups.

Identity & Access (The most critical layer) #

• Enforce MFA Everywhere: Hard keys (YubiKey) or App-based (1Password/Google). No SMS MFA (sim-swapping is real).
• Use a Password Manager: 1Password or Bitwarden. Enforce it company-wide. No sharing passwords in Slack.
• SSO (Single Sign-On): If you use Google Workspace, enforce "Log in with Google" for all SaaS tools (Slack, Zoom, Jira).

Infrastructure (AWS/GCP) #

• No Root Accounts: Lock away the root user credentials physically. Create individual IAM users/roles.
• MFA on Console: Enforce MFA for anyone logging into the cloud console.
• No Public S3 Buckets: Turn on "Block Public Access" at the account level.
• No SSH to Production: Use AWS Systems Manager (SSM) or GCP IAP to access servers. Don't manage SSH keys.

Device Security #

• Disk Encryption: FileVault (Mac) or BitLocker (Windows) must be on.
• Auto-Updates: Force OS and browser updates.
• Screen Lock: Set to 5 minutes.

Code & Pipeline #

• Branch Protection: No pushing directly to main. Require 1 reviewer for PRs.
• Secret Scanning: Enable GitHub's native secret scanning or use gitleaks.
• Separate Prod/Dev: Production data should never live in a development environment.

Legal & HR #

• Background Checks: For anyone with access to production data.
• Offboarding Checklist: When someone leaves, have a scripted process to revoke access immediately (Identity provider first, then individual accounts).

That's it. #

If you do these things, you are more secure than 90% of your competitors.

Don't waste time on "Advanced Threat Protection" or "AI-driven anomaly detection" until you have MFA enforced on your email.

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Need a deep dive on your specific infrastructure? I offer a Cloud Security Assessment that covers this checklist and your K8s configuration in detail.