9 Precious Jewels to Secure Your Start-Up

|An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure - Benjamin Franklin 

In start-ups, it's not surprising if we don't find any cybersecurity initiatives. The good thing about start-ups is that they are comparatively a smaller target due to their lesser risk than the larger organizations.  

It's an exciting opportunity to start security from scratch, considering the business needs, taking one step at a time, and focusing on your start-up's most critical assets. Let's dive deep into the world of securing start-ups. 

For the last eight weeks, I walked you through how you could secure your start-up by being proactive, understanding, and implementing "9 Precious Jewels to Secure Your Start-Up". 

In this brief guide, we would attempt to give you an overview of all the 9 precious jewels so that you can go ahead with many insights to secure your start-up. You can prioritize the jewels that are most relevant to you and hold your fort from cyber-attacks. 

1st Jewel: Minimum Viable Cyber Security Plan (MVCSP) 

When you're unable to focus on the security challenges since you're taking care of the vital business functions, Sumeru's Minimum Viable Cyber Security Plan (MVCSP) could be the ideal option for solving your start-up security challenges. 

Here's how Sumeru helps you pull this off from scratch - 

You can read the whole article on MVCSP here. 

2nd Jewel: Pass-phrases, Password Managers, MFA, EDR 

When we start with security, one of the primary and crucial factors to consider is your credentials. How securely you create, store, share, etc., is critical because it is the gateway to your entire organization.    

Several security reports state that the top attack vectors and causes of most data breaches are typically unsecured credentials such as default credentials, weak credentials, hardcoded credentials in codebases, etc. These have resulted in gaining access to your systems quickly.  

Sumeru helps implement different tools and works with various partners in enabling these security controls for your start-up. 

Hence, here's what you should focus on - 

Check out the whole article on pass-phrases, password managers, MFA, EDR here. 

3rd Jewel: Network, Application, Cloud, & Container Security 

You should pay attention to your security budgets and spend them most optimally as a start-up. Sumeru helps in providing cost-effective solutions with a mix of open-source and commercial tools as needed.  

We start by engaging with the respective people from the infrastructure and the application team to understand your network, applications, & other services and map out your entire infrastructure. 

Here's how Sumeru helps you in your network, application, cloud, and container security - 

You can check out the whole article on network, application, cloud, & container security here. 

4th Jewel: Compliance, Privacy, & Third-Party Management 

It's easy for start-ups to view their IT as naturally safe – after all, why would hackers bother with smaller businesses when large-scale organization handles enormous volumes of customers data? 

IT security for start-ups may also take a back seat given the sheer number of mission-critical tasks requiring management's attention. If technology services are working "good enough," why make changes? 

Start-ups are often the hot target for data compromise because they don't have built-in cybersecurity controls or well-articulated infosec policies and procedures in place. 

Here's what Sumeru recommends - 

You can read the whole article here. 

5th Jewel: Phishing & Incident Response 

The weakest chain in any organization is humans, and hackers exploit this weakness to easily bypass the technical controls in the system to gain access to sensitive data. It is crucial to create awareness among employees to protect against phishing attacks. 

When a breach occurs, you need to address the attack immediately, contain it, and remediate the threat. Having an expert incident response team to stop, fix, and an ongoing incident response process keeps your data secure. 

Here's how Sumeru helps you in preventing phishing attacks, and create effective incident responses - 

You can read the whole article here. 

6th Jewel: Security Operations Center (SOC) 

A start-up must also have a Security Operations Center (SOC) to monitor its critical assets for any security incidents. It helps in detection, investigation, and responding quickly to any cybersecurity threats. 

Here's how Sumeru helps you monitor your critical assets through SOC - 

Check out the whole article here. 

7th Jewel: Secure SDLC & DevSecOps 

We have seen the importance of security across various domains, especially from the infrastructure perspective. One of the essential parts of building a secure application or a product is to make security into it right from the beginning.   

It can involve activities such as carrying out threat modeling with architects, educating developers on secure coding practices, helping quality testers create security test cases as part of functional or unit testing, and lots more.  

Here's how Sumeru would help you secure SDLC and DevSecOps - 

To know more, you can read the whole article here. 

8th Jewel: Management Buy-In & Return on Security Investments (ROSI) 

The pandemic has forced the world to think about security even more. Security advisory now can't be an after-thought (never should be) but should be a proactive element in your overall business strategy, especially during the early stages of start-ups. 

Let's have a look at how Sumeru helps in getting the management buy-in for security budgets and how you can improve the return on security investments (ROSI) - 

You can now read more about it in the whole article here. 

9th Jewel: In-House CISO vs. VCISO 

What should be the right option for security advisory – hiring an in-house CISO or going for the outsourcing option or virtual CISO (vCISO)! 

Here are the aspects you should consider - 

You can read the whole article here. 

For over the last 20 years, Sumeru is helping businesses of different sizes, from start-ups to enterprises, to prevent breaches, simulate attacks, protect sensitive data, and stay compliant with robust cybersecurity solutions tailor-made for each of them.  

We, at Sumeru, are always with you in this forever fight for security. 

Email us at hello@sumerusolutions.com and let us help you secure your start-up from scratch. 

Written by:

Chidhanandham Arunachalam, Chief Program Officer at Sumeru Solutions. A passionate entrepreneurial leader & unshakable optimist dedicated to helping companies achieve remarkable results with great technology solutions.

This article is a compendium of all of the articles we produced for our series on 'Secure Your Start-ups'. To read all the articles of the series in a go, please follow #sumerusecureyourstartup