Additional praise for Star-Up Secure: Baking Cybersecurity into Your Company from Founding to Exit
“It’s rare to see a cybersecurity guide of any kind that is relevant, current, and most importantly, cogent and accessible. Chris Castaldo has not only produced such a guide but has tailored it for an audience who has never before received such wisdom in a digestible manner-the startup community. Startups are notoriously fast-moving, and Castaldo’s book keeps up with them, showing them the types of practical security controls they need throughout their rapid journey to whatever exit strategy they envision.”
–Allan Alford, veteran CISO and co-host of the Defense in Depth podcast
“Start-Up Secure offers important insights and advice in an area that is often overlooked by entrepreneurs. Cybersecurity has emerged as a critical competency for businesses, and this trend will likely continue or accelerate. The guidance provided in these pages will save founders from making preventable mistakes in multiple dimensions, from technical security decisions to avoiding unreasonable contract language. The wisdom shared by Chris is hard-learned, and a valuable addition to any entrepreneur’s thought process.”
–Paul Ihme, co-founder, Soteria
“Cybersecurity is often thought of as too intimidating or complex for the layperson to comprehend. Chris Castaldo’s book Start-Up Secure seeks to take the mystery out of succeeding at cybersecurity. His straightforward and direct approach serves as an essential guide to starting out on the right foot with your security program. It is accessible and actionable and I would recommend it to anyone seeking to tackle cybersecurity; the most important business challenge of our time.”
–Brian Markham, CISO, EAB Global Inc.
From the Inside Flap
Cybersecurity is an increasingly important requirement for every company, regardless of size or industry. Competent and effective data security and privacy are now table stakes for start-ups as well, with new legislation, regulations, and consumer expectations driving increasing levels of security and protection.
Start-Up Secure: Baking Cybersecurity into Your Company from Founding to Exit delivers all the information an entrepreneur or venture capitalist needs to know when building a secure company in today’s increasingly dynamic landscape. From their first round of funding through successful exit, the book describes how to incorporate security and privacy into each stage of a start-up’s life.
It shows founders, cybersecurity professionals, and others involved in a start-up how to integrate cybersecurity into your company and build a resilient company. You’ll learn basic cybersecurity concepts every founder needs to understand and discover how data security and privacy can improve your value proposition in your target market. You’ll also learn how to scale cybersecurity within your organization as you grow.
Start-Up Secure demonstrates how and why data privacy and security are not add-ons that can simply be tacked on at the end of the entrepreneurial journey. Instead, they form part of the foundation of any successful company. A secure and successful exit is not possible without securing a start-up’s data and the privacy of its customers. The book shows you how to accomplish that goal using techniques, tools, and strategies appropriate for your industry, organization, and circumstances.
Perfect for entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, leaders, founders, and individual team members at start-ups in any industry and of any size, Start-Up Secure offers readers an invaluable and comprehensive treatment of a crucial topic at a critical moment.
From the Back Cover
PRAISE FOR
START-UP SECURE
“A must-read for any start-up organization whether they are providing an application or developing the next great widget. Chris has taken a complex subject and made it relatively simple with step-by-step examples and references to help founders understand their threats. If you are building an organization and plan to be acquired, Chris covers the elements that will happen in a review and highlights the importance of addressing them upfront to reduce costs and make your assessment or funding round as painless as possible.”
―HAROLD MOSS, former CTO, IBM
“Cybersecurity is often one of the things that early stage companies defer―and in doing so, they put their data, their reputations, and their businesses at significant risk. Chris Castaldo offers a clear, comprehensive, and actionable approach to making information security a cornerstone of a modern company’s construction and does so with eloquence and precision. It’s the closest thing to having the ability to hire a seasoned CISO on day one and should be essential reading for every founder.”
―KEVIN O’BRIEN, CEO and Co-founder, GreatHorn
“Chris works to bring a valuable introduction to security basics for the start-up world in a practical, relatable way.”
―ANNE MARIE ZETTLEMOYER, Vice President, Security Engineering, Payments Industry; Visiting Fellow, National Security Institute
“In Start-Up Secure Chris Castaldo does an exceptional job of covering the core essentials founders need when building their companies. He develops the groundwork for entrepreneurs to incorporate sound IT and cybersecurity practices into their start-ups as part of their innovative culture. His book is a great read; I found myself taking notes and really enjoyed the experience. I feel it will provide value to everyone in the start-up community for years to come and can’t wait to see what he writes next.”
―GARY HAYSLIP, CISO, SoftBank Investment Advisers
“Start-up security has been an afterthought for far too long, getting pushed to later stages, and yet a single data breach might doom your fledgling business. Unfortunately, far too many fast growing start-ups fall into this trap and have to deal with the impossible public relations nightmare after a breach. Delay no more! In this thoughtful and approachable book, Chris Castaldo gives you an actionable roadmap to mitigate this massive, yet snubbed, risk to your business. You can easily use this book to get your security program going at any budget or team size. Pick it up, read it, and get implementing.”
―SINAN EREN, CEO and founder, Fyde
About the Author
CHRIS CASTALDO is the Chief Information Security Officer at Crossbeam, the world’s first and most powerful partner ecosystem platform. Crossbeam acts as a data escrow service that finds overlapping customers and prospects with your partners while keeping the rest of your data private and secure. Chris is also a Visiting Fellow at the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. He previously held cybersecurity executive roles at Dataminr, 2U, IronNet Cybersecurity, Synchronoss, and the National Security Agency. He is a U.S. Army and Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran.
Wow! eBook
