The essential security you need before launching your MVP. Prioritized for speed—know what's critical, what can wait, and what you're risking.
Perfect security kills startups. Zero security kills startups too. This checklist helps you find the right balance: protect against the attacks that will happen, defer the ones that probably won't (yet).
Critical items that will cause immediate damage if missing
Important items to address as you get traction
Enterprise requirements for when you grow
These items can cause immediate, serious damage if missing. Don't launch without them.
Users can only access their own data. Test by creating 2 accounts and trying to access each other's data.
All API keys, database passwords, and secrets are in environment variables, not in code or committed to git.
All traffic is encrypted. Most platforms (Vercel, Netlify) do this automatically, but verify.
Supabase RLS enabled, Firebase Security Rules configured. Users can't read/write other users' data.
Stack traces, debug logs, and development features are disabled in production.
Address these as you get early traction. They reduce risk and build trust.
Prevent abuse of your API endpoints. Limit login attempts, API calls, and resource-intensive operations.
Validate and sanitize all user input. Prevent XSS in text fields, SQL injection in search, path traversal in file uploads.
Add CSP, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options. Prevents clickjacking and XSS.
Automated daily backups of your database. Test that you can actually restore from them.
Log authentication events, errors, and suspicious activity. Set up alerts for anomalies.
Enable Dependabot or similar to catch vulnerable dependencies. Review and merge security updates.
Enterprise customers and investors will ask about these. Build when you need them.
Before you launch or share your app, answer these questions:
If you answered "yes" or "I don't know" to any of these, fix them before launching.
Yes, but only the essentials. One data breach can kill your startup before it starts. The critical items take less than 2 hours total and prevent 90% of attacks.
These platforms are secure, but you need to configure them correctly. The most common startup breaches are misconfigured database rules that allow anyone to read all data.
Everything in 'Before Launch' is free and takes a few hours. Security scanning tools like ours offer free tiers. You can't afford NOT to do basic security.
Not yet. Do the basics yourself, use automated scanning, and hire when you have paying customers, sensitive data, or enterprise requirements. A pentest before product-market fit is premature.
Our free scan checks for the most critical startup security issues. Get a report and fix problems before launch.
Scan Your MVP FreeLast updated: January 2025