Startups face numerous cybersecurity challenges, but protecting your business doesn’t have to break the bank. This article presents 21 low-cost cybersecurity measures that offer high return on investment, based on insights from industry experts. From network segmentation to hardware security keys, these practical strategies can significantly enhance your startup’s digital defenses without straining your budget.
- Network Segmentation Prevents Catastrophic Breach
- Employee Education Strengthens Cybersecurity Foundation
- Cloud Backups Save Business from Data Disaster
- Role-Based Access Control Limits Attack Surface
- Virtual CISO Provides Strategic Security Leadership
- VirusTotal Scanning Protects Against Malicious Files
- CAPTCHA and DDoS Mitigation Secure Applications
- Free WordPress Plugin Blocks Malicious Logins
- AI-Powered Email Security Thwarts Phishing Attempts
- SSL Encryption Builds Trust in Crypto Exchange
- Automatic Updates Close Security Vulnerabilities Quickly
- Basic Practices Yield High Security ROI
- Automated Dependency Scanning Reduces Vulnerability Remediation Time
- Regular Password Hygiene Prevents User Error
- Blocking USB Ports Eliminates Major Attack Vector
- VPN Access Secures Remote Team Communications
- Hardware Security Keys Eliminate Phishing Incidents
- Cloud-Based Firewall and Segmentation Protect Data
- Free Encryption Tools Safeguard Sensitive Client Information
- Web Application Firewall Provides Comprehensive Protection
- Email Authentication Thwarts Spoofing Attempts
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Network Segmentation Prevents Catastrophic Breach
Network segmentation provided the highest security ROI for our cybersecurity consultancy. I implemented basic VLAN separation using our existing managed switches, creating isolated networks for client work, internal operations, and guest access.
The configuration required only my existing networking knowledge and a weekend of careful planning. I documented the segmentation strategy and trained our team on which network segments to use for different types of client engagements and internal research projects.
This segmentation prevented a client’s compromised endpoint from accessing our proprietary threat intelligence database. The isolation contained what could have been a catastrophic breach of our research data and client information. In our industry, losing that intellectual property would have destroyed our competitive edge.
As someone who has written extensively about cyber threats, I can confidently say that network segmentation offers exceptional protection relative to implementation costs. For consultancies handling sensitive client environments, this foundational security control enables us to maintain the trust that our reputation depends on.
Bob Gourley, CTO & Co-founder, Author, The Cyber Threat
Employee Education Strengthens Cybersecurity Foundation
For us, cybersecurity has been a top priority since the very beginning, as we’re a fully remote team spread across multiple countries, so every bit of information is shared digitally. While investing in cybersecurity tools is important, I find that the best and single most valuable cybersecurity measure we implemented early on was educating our employees.
Early on, we held regular workshops on simple, practical habits everyone must do, such as using password managers to generate and store passwords, enabling two-factor authentication, and keeping all software and operating systems updated to stave off attacks. We also talked a lot about phishing and the importance of recognizing shady links, which could seriously endanger employees and the company as a whole. Here, we made good use of free tools like Gophish, helping everyone recognize suspicious emails and links before they cause trouble. The best part is that these measures cost little to nothing financially and only require a bit of preparation, but the payoff is enormous in the long run.
Really, there is no tool, no matter how sophisticated or expensive, that can fully prevent mistakes that come from the inside of an organization. For us, education comes first and has always provided us with the highest return on investment in all areas, not just cybersecurity.
Harry Morton, Founder, Lower Street
Cloud Backups Save Business from Data Disaster
I implemented automatic cloud backups for all our property documentation and client files, which cost us only $30 per month but saved us from a potential disaster when our office computer crashed during a major flip project. Having dealt with the fast-paced restaurant industry for 15 years, I knew that losing critical data could shut down operations instantly. We set up automated daily backups to secure cloud storage for all our renovation photos, contracts, and financial records, then created a simple recovery protocol that my team could execute in under an hour. This gave us peace of mind knowing our business could continue operating even if our physical equipment failed.
Gene Martin, Founder, Martin Legacy Holdings
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Role-Based Access Control Limits Attack Surface
One low-cost cybersecurity measure that provided significant ROI for our startup was implementing strict role-based access control (RBAC) policies. By meticulously defining and assigning user roles based on the principle of least privilege, we ensured that employees only had access to the systems and data absolutely necessary for their jobs. This drastically reduced the attack surface, limiting opportunities for insider threats or external breaches through compromised accounts.
To implement RBAC with limited resources, we utilized free tools like open-source identity and access management (IAM) software, which allowed us to automate and enforce role assignments. We conducted an internal audit to classify sensitive data and systems, then cross-referenced each employee’s tasks to map out precise access requirements. Additionally, we provided free online training sessions to our team to emphasize the importance of robust password management and responsible access practices. This approach was inexpensive yet highly effective, significantly enhancing our security posture while promoting a culture of accountability.
Matthias Woggon, CEO & Co-founder, eyefactive
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Virtual CISO Provides Strategic Security Leadership
Hire a virtual CISO (vCISO) – typically $15-25K/year for 10-20 hours monthly.
Why it’s high ROI:
– Provides senior cybersecurity expertise without a $200K+ full-time salary
– Aligns security spending with actual business risks (prevents security theater)
– Handles compliance requirements efficiently (SOC 2, etc.)
– Optimizes existing tools rather than buying expensive new ones
– Creates incident response plans your small team can execute
Implementation: Find a vCISO with SMB experience who understands resource constraints. They’ll conduct a business-aligned risk assessment, rationalize your security stack, and build practical processes that scale with growth.
Result: Strategic security leadership that prevents both breaches and wasteful spending while making you audit-ready.
Oussama Louhaidia, Founder/CTO, getcybr, inc.
VirusTotal Scanning Protects Against Malicious Files
The highest ROI security measure was teaching every employee to use VirusTotal before opening any attachment or clicking any link. VirusTotal is a multi-scanning website that aggregates many antivirus products to scan files.
Our rule is simple: any file, suspicious or not, coming from a third party or URL goes into VirusTotal first, no exceptions. VirusTotal is free and, in my humble opinion, irreplaceable. Teaching your colleagues or employees is really easy. A 5-minute training session is sufficient, and bookmarking the website is all they need to do.
All in all, if you are unsure about a URL, just check it with VirusTotal. Received a suspicious ZIP file from a client? Upload it to VirusTotal first.
Burak Özdemir, Founder, Online Alarm Kur
CAPTCHA and DDoS Mitigation Secure Applications
Privacy and security regarding our clients’ payroll data are paramount to us. This is why we took multiple low-cost cybersecurity measures to tackle this issue. The two most impactful low-cost, yet even free, cybersecurity measures are the following:
We implemented a CAPTCHA verification in our app sign-up step to ensure that users who first sign up for our app are real, not bots or spam. CAPTCHA is a system that verifies if a user is a genuine human, and there are many CAPTCHA providers (from reCAPTCHA to Cloudflare) out there, which even offer their services for free. You can easily sign up with any CAPTCHA provider, go to the specific CAPTCHA widget section, and create a CAPTCHA widget. Once you have created the widget, you will be given API keys, which you can easily implement into your application. Depending on your tech stack, the implementation of CAPTCHA API keys varies, but there are many great tutorials (from WordPress to NextJS) on the web.
Second, we have implemented a DDoS mitigation solution to prevent a DDoS attack. DDoS is short for distributed denial-of-service, and it is a cyberattack in which the attacker has multiple bots (known as a botnet) and tries to flood and overwhelm your server with a massive amount of traffic in a short time frame, thus making the server and the application inaccessible or spiking the server costs tremendously. These DDoS attacks can shut down your services if you don’t take precautions. This is why we use a DDoS mitigation tool to stop those attacks. There are many providers for this (from Fastly to AWS), some even offer it for free. The best way to implement this tool is to check if your server provider offers this feature, and then you can easily activate this mode with a few clicks. In most tools, you can also set the level of checks, which means you can set, for example, the “Under Attack Mode”, which then checks every single request thoroughly against a potential attack. This, however, delays the user’s experience of your site, so many set the amount of checks to medium.
Frederic S., Founder, PayrollRabbit
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Free WordPress Plugin Blocks Malicious Logins
I set up Wordfence on our WordPress site after we were hit with automated attacks attempting to scrape our financial data last year. The free version blocked over 200 malicious login attempts in the first month alone. Now I sleep better knowing our investment content and user data stay protected without impacting our tight budget.
Adam Garcia, Founder, The Stock Dork
AI-Powered Email Security Thwarts Phishing Attempts
One cybersecurity measure we found had the most impact for the lowest cost was implementing an advanced email security tool. It integrates with Microsoft 365 and Outlook to better filter and quarantine suspected threats, completely removing the potential risks and protecting our business. The implementation was fairly simple, and there is a low license cost per user that we pay on an ongoing basis to access the tool. The tool we selected leverages AI and machine learning to delve deeper into analyzing signals that an email may contain threats and continues to get smarter at categorizing potential threats the more we use the platform. Given that email is still the most exploited communication channel, allowing bad actors to use impersonation, phishing, and links to malware to gain access to systems and data, it is worth putting some extra protection in place.
Colton De Vos, Marketing Specialist, Resolute Technology Solutions
Verizon Small Business Digital Ready
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SSL Encryption Builds Trust in Crypto Exchange
As a blockchain security specialist, one of the best moves we made was enforcing HTTPS with SSL encryption across our entire platform. It didn’t cost much, but it created a huge layer of trust and safety for our users. We have a crypto exchange platform. This means that every transaction and login involves sensitive data that could be targeted by attackers.
SSL ensures that information is encrypted end-to-end. It makes it harder for bad actors to obtain or tamper with account credentials, wallet addresses, or trade details. Beyond this technical protection, the visible padlock reassures traders. It shows them that their activity is happening in a secure environment. For a startup running lean, it was an inexpensive way for us to provide serious protection and peace of mind, which is priceless in the crypto space.
Thomas Franklin, CEO & Blockchain Security Specialist, Swapped
Automatic Updates Close Security Vulnerabilities Quickly
We have a lot of different processes in place, so there are no gaps in security. I don’t think you should ever rely on just one or two measures, even if you want to keep things lean. Out of these measures, the most cost-effective one was setting up automatic software and system updates. Almost all our work involves diagnostics, where we’re handling sensitive data and have to meet strict regulations. So outdated software can expose us to all kinds of vulnerabilities and also get us into legal trouble.
Thankfully, with these automations, it means we’re closing security holes as soon as patches come out. It’s really such a simple step that it makes no sense to skip.
Mario Hupfeld, CTO and Co-Founder, NEMIS Technologies
Basic Practices Yield High Security ROI
One of the simplest, low-cost cybersecurity measures we use is frequently changing our passwords. And not just “CompanyName123!” type passwords; we generate complicated, strong ones using online generators. That’s the first and easiest step we took.
We also rely on automatic backups for our most critical data. For example, we use a hosted Nextcloud installation that backs up our files automatically. Old data goes into an archive, so nothing important is ever lost.
On the software side, we stick to cost-effective options. Microsoft firewall and antivirus serve well, and they come free. In addition, many of the tools we already use, like Google, Zoho, and Slack, have strong, built-in security features that we utilize.
Another simple but effective practice is keeping our user list tidy. If someone leaves the company, their ID is removed almost immediately. That small step alone reduces a lot of risk.
Taken together, these basic but consistent measures have given us a high ROI on cybersecurity without requiring heavy investment.
Chaitanya Sagar, Founder & CEO, Perceptive Analytics
Automated Dependency Scanning Reduces Vulnerability Remediation Time
We enabled automated dependency scanning to start generating weekly auto-PRs with a 48-hour SLA for critical issues. The mean time to remediate dropped from 45 days to 6 days without shipping known CVEs, with incremental headcount; we netted approximately 6 engineering hours per week that would have gone to manual upgrades.
As co-founder of all-in-one-ai.co, it’s the only control I’m aware of that delivered a payback in both risk reduction and developer time savings.
My advice in summary would be: start with production repositories only, limit it to patch/minor version bumps, and route security PRs through CODEOWNERS with branch protection so that the tests must pass before merging. Track MTTR for vulnerabilities and the percentage of auto-merged PRs as your success metrics. In the first month, we closed over 70 findings (including one critical OpenSSL chain) with no rollbacks.
Dario Ferrai, Co-Founder, All-in-one-ai.co
Campaigner Marketing
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Regular Password Hygiene Prevents User Error
We’ve been practicing proper password hygiene from day one. While it can’t be the only cybersecurity tool in our toolbox, the vast majority of breaches are ultimately tied to user error, either by falling for phishing attacks or being careless with passwords. This is something we take a moment to review at every monthly staff meeting, along with reminders to update passwords and regular phishing tests.
Wynter Johnson, CEO, Caily
Blocking USB Ports Eliminates Major Attack Vector
One low-cost measure that gave us the best ROI was blocking USB ports on all company laptops using simple OS policies. It sounds basic, but here’s why.
We had freelancers and remote employees working on client data. Someone once plugged in an infected USB drive from their personal device, and luckily our EDR flagged it before any damage occurred. That was a wake-up call.
With no big budget for enterprise DLP solutions, we used Group Policy (Windows) and simple terminal commands (Mac) to disable USB storage for everyone except a couple of machines in a controlled lab. We documented an exception process for emergencies.
The cost was $0. Time invested was just 2 hours. But the impact? It removed an entire attack vector that could have cost us our client contracts.
Security ROI isn’t about buying new tools; it’s about closing the easiest doors attackers use.
Garrett Lehman, Co-Founder, Gapp Group
VPN Access Secures Remote Team Communications
For us, requiring VPN-only access for our remote team was the highest-value, low-cost move. At just around $10 per user, it allowed us to confidently keep client data and internal conversations secure from prying eyes. I’d suggest starting here if you’re remote-heavy—it’s affordable, easy to roll out, and immediately closes off many risk paths.
Joe Davies, CEO, FATJOE
Hardware Security Keys Eliminate Phishing Incidents
We installed hardware security keys because we realized that there were frequent phishing attacks on our employees. We bought 25 of each key, and each was priced at $40, which amounted to approximately $1,000. The implementation process was simple and required about 45 minutes per employee for setup and only a short training. This change was not difficult since the machines ensured more reliable logins as well as eliminated the use of complicated passwords that had kept the staff and customers frustrated with the server.
IT was also spending approximately 6 to 8 hours every quarter on phishing-related problems and account recovery that would translate to about $900 in lost productivity annually before rollout. Since we began to add the keys, there were no further incidents of this sort in one year, which saved us that time and money in a short period. The dollar payoff was not as significant, but the peace of mind and a lessening of friction within the team as a whole made it one of the best low-cost moves we have ever made.
J.R. Faris, President & CEO, Accountalent
Cloud-Based Firewall and Segmentation Protect Data
As the COO, I understand the critical importance of implementing cost-effective cybersecurity measures that provide a strong return on investment. For our business, one of the most effective cybersecurity tools is a properly configured firewall and the implementation of network segmentation.
In the early days of scaling our business, we recognized the need to protect sensitive customer data, particularly their payment information, from cyber threats. Simultaneously, we were aware that our available resources were limited as a startup, and it was crucial not to divert valuable resources away from our main business objectives by making costly purchases.
We decided to leverage the security tools already included with our cloud hosting provider, AWS. Specifically, we knew that the firewall’s default settings and the ability to create virtual private clouds (VPCs) could be used to build a solid security system without incurring high costs.
We engaged a freelance IT consultant for a one-time fee of $150 to assist us in setting up the firewall rules and implementing network segmentation. This process was straightforward – we restricted traffic to only the necessary ports, effectively reducing the size of the attack surface and minimizing the likelihood of unauthorized access to our systems.
Once we had configured the firewall, we utilized AWS’s VPC features to establish an isolated environment for our customer-facing tools and resources, separating them from our internal tools and resources. Network segmentation is crucial for preventing an attack from propagating into our non-public facing tools. In the event of an incident on our public-facing platform, the segmentation would prevent it from ‘spreading’ into our internal tools and data.
By leveraging the built-in security features from our cloud provider, we constructed a cyber-secure environment using a freelance IT consultant for less than $200. This investment has continued to provide returns to our business as we have grown.
Now that Resell Calendar has reached its current stage of growth, we can build our own in-house IT team to manage our cybersecurity infrastructure going forward. As we secure sensitive information from potential clients, they will have the confidence that comes with knowing we have taken the necessary steps to secure our platform.
Ryan McDonald, COO, Resell Calendar
Free Encryption Tools Safeguard Sensitive Client Information
One of the best ROI security measures was encrypting clients’ data, particularly sensitive information such as contracts, financial information, and personal information. Young, broke, and resource-constrained, we turned to free or cheap encryption tools: VeraCrypt for files and SSL certificates on the website. We also provided the team with training on secure file storage and sharing. This was an easy measure to implement and didn’t require too much spending. The outcome was better security around client data that would help establish trust while preventing legal and financial issues in the future from data breaches – strong security at low cost.
Keith Sant, Founder & CEO, Kind House Buyers
Web Application Firewall Provides Comprehensive Protection
The highest ROI, low-cost move was putting a WAF in front of everything—specifically Cloudflare. I am not endorsing or promoting in any way, but sharing our learnings. It’s a plug-and-play solution, shields you from DDoS, bot abuse and common web exploits, while giving you so many granular level controls and flexibility to configure it the way you want. And the ROI is simple: it keeps you alive without hiring niche specialists. Start on the free plan; if traffic or risk grows, Cloudflare Pro at $20/month is a no-brainer for the extra rules and protection.
Implementation with limited resources is a key element here: We did it due to our team’s high IT infrastructure caliber, but for anyone out there, it’s not a turn-off because it’s a one-time job – fire and forget. A teammate with decent IT infrastructure knowledge can do this in an afternoon; otherwise, hire a freelancer for a few hours to set it up and show you the basics. After that, you mostly leave it alone—update the IP whitelist when staff or locations change and you don’t need to do anything else day-to-day.
What most startups overlook is that a WAF also acts as “virtual patching”, buying you time when there’s a vulnerability you can’t fix immediately. You cut downtime risk, reduce origin load, and avoid expensive emergency engineers—all for little or no spend.
Whether you are a retailer needing your WordPress protected, or a normal business – application and network layer restrictions along with performance elements make Cloudflare a no-brainer. It’s like weighing up Microsoft versus what? There’s no one business that provides everything under the roof as an alternative to Microsoft. You would need Google + AWS + other services to make up for Office 365 replacement. Why not use the ones from tried, tested specialist recommendations?
Harman Singh, Director, Cyphere
Email Authentication Thwarts Spoofing Attempts
Email authentication gave us the highest return for the lowest spend. We implemented SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, then progressed from monitor to quarantine within a week, and finally to reject mode. The first thing I check is whether external senders can spoof our domain. The key question is whether finance-related changes arrive only through our verified channel. A simple rule seals it: any bank change requires a callback to a known number before we process payment.
Setup took one afternoon with our domain host and a ten-minute tailgate meeting to explain the reasoning. Spoofing attempts decreased by more than ninety percent, and we thwarted one invoice fraud that would have resulted in significant financial loss. For small teams, prioritize securing the main entry point and then create a concise payment verification process.
John Elarde III, Operations Manager, Clear View Building Services
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