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SaaS CTO Security Checklist
A practical checklist for hardening SaaS application and company security. Built for CTOs responsible for shipping, scaling, and securing SaaS products, with guidance that adapts from early-stage teams to scaleups.
Sooraj Shah is Content Marketing Lead at Aikido Security. He has a background as a journalist for publications such as the BBC, the FT, Infosecurity Magazine and SC Magazine, and as a content marketer for B2B tech companies and start-ups.
Key Findings
Securing the company
Identity and access, employee devices, email security, onboarding and offboarding, and safe use of AI tools.
Securing the platform
Cloud infrastructure, environment separation, backups, monitoring, and incident readiness.
Securing the code
Secure development practices, dependency risk, secrets management, reviews, and supply chain controls.
Securing the product
Authentication, authorization, APIs, and user-facing security controls.
Summary
Security requirements change as SaaS companies grow.
Controls that work at ten people break at one hundred.
This checklist helps CTOs apply the right security measures at the right stage, without over-engineering or slowing development.
The checklist comes equipped with:
- A stage-based checklist tagged for Bootstrap, Startup, and Scaleup
- Practical guidance that can be adapted to your environment as you grow
What you’ll learn
How to scale SaaS security progressively while keeping teams productive.
Based on practical guidance for SaaS CTOs securing both their product and their company across bootstrap, startup, and scaleup stages.
Security requirements change as SaaS companies grow. What works early breaks later. This checklist helps CTOs focus on the right controls at the right stage, without turning security into overhead.
It is built to be used, revisited, and automated as teams scale.
This checklist covers:
Company and team foundations
Core controls like 2FA, email security, access management, onboarding and offboarding, and basic security hygiene that prevent the most common breaches.
Infrastructure and cloud security
Practical guidance on backups, cloud account separation, monitoring, budget alerts, and reducing blast radius as infrastructure grows more complex.
Application and code security
How to handle secrets, dependencies, supply chain risk, secure code reviews, and common vulnerabilities introduced during development.
AI and modern attack surfaces
Checks for LLM usage, AI-related risks, phishing, and newer attack patterns that traditional checklists often miss.
Each item is tagged by company stage so CTOs can apply what matters now and plan for what comes next.
Built by Aikido Security.
Sooraj Shah is Content Marketing Lead at Aikido Security. He has a background as a journalist for publications such as the BBC, the FT, Infosecurity Magazine and SC Magazine, and as a content marketer for B2B tech companies and start-ups.