Ask HN: As a startup CTO, how do I protect my web app from security threats?

Posted by svepuri on Saturday October 03, 2015 @11:55AM
from the ask-hn dept.

As a first time CTO (only tech person in the team) of an early stage startup, I am trying to maximize the benefits from my time. Subsequently, I am spending little time on coding and more on quickly integrating solutions such as SendGrid, Twilio, Stripe, and AWS services into my system.

You would have read that recently SendGrid was hacked. Such instances make me wonder how secure my system is. Could you please offer advices on how you keep your startup web applications safe from security threats?

( 7 comments | 4 points | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: As a startup CTO, how do I protect my web app fro... by manibatra on Saturday October 03, 2015 @12:55PM (#10324476)

Pretty much in the same boat as you. The one thing I am making sure is anything that goes into the database is properly validated and sanitised as mentioned by the other user. Keeping keys as environment variables rather than in the files would be other. Write lots of tests if you are not already doing so. But at the same time also keep in mind that there should be a fine balance , in my humble opinion, in putting in time to make your system secure and moving fast and getting the product out to market. Unless of course your product sells security. Cover your basics and add in more protections once you get a product market fit.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: As a startup CTO, how do I protect my web app fro... by svepuri on Saturday October 03, 2015 @03:29PM (#10325059)

What are the more protections you are referring to in your last sentence?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: As a startup CTO, how do I protect my web app fro... by manibatra on Sunday October 04, 2015 @12:38PM (#10327978)

Sorry for the late reply. As I said I am in the same boat as you so just worried about how I could get prevent myself from being "hacked". Email verification for user signups is something I am doing. Apart from that just looking at every piece of code and not relying just on the client side stuff(javascript) :)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: As a startup CTO, how do I protect my web app fro... by svepuri on Sunday October 04, 2015 @08:18PM (#10329356)

Check this link http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/22/security-for-startups-in-10... It may help to some extent.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: As a startup CTO, how do I protect my web app fro... by manibatra on Sunday October 04, 2015 @09:31PM (#10329551)

Thanks! That was good :)

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: As a startup CTO, how do I protect my web app fro... by virken2015 on Saturday October 03, 2015 @11:58AM (#10324312)

Hard to say too much not knowing what infrastructure its on, but would start with the basics of good input sanitization to avoid sql injection.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: As a startup CTO, how do I protect my web app fro... by svepuri on Saturday October 03, 2015 @12:51PM (#10324463)

Currently my webapp is built using PHP and MySQL LAMP stack and is hosted on AWS EC2. I have taken care to avoid SQL injections.

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