Most startups don't get hacked because of sophisticated zero-days. They get hacked because of the boring stuff nobody prioritizes.

After analyzing breach reports from the past 12 months, here are the 5 gaps I see in almost every early-stage company:

1. Default cloud configs.

Your S3 buckets, Firebase rules, and API gateways shipped with defaults. Attackers scan for these automatically. It takes them seconds.

2. No egress filtering.

You monitor what comes in but not what goes out. If an attacker gets a foothold, they're exfiltrating data through your wide-open outbound rules.

3. Third-party SaaS sprawl.

Every tool your team signs up for is another attack surface. Most startups have zero visibility into their SaaS supply chain.

4. Shared credentials in Slack.

API keys, admin passwords, database URIs — sitting in plain text in channels. Slack gets breached, and your entire infrastructure is exposed.

5. No incident response plan.

When something happens (and it will), most teams freeze. No runbook, no communication plan, no forensic readiness.

I break down threats like these every week in ThreatLine — concise, actionable cybersecurity intelligence built specifically for startup and SMB tech leaders.

If you're responsible for keeping your company secure, this is worth 5 minutes of your week.