How do you ensure your online presence—your website, e-commerce store, or custom application—is truly secure? For many small business owners, this question isn’t just theoretical; it’s a genuine concern that can impact customer trust and financial stability. You’ve likely implemented basic defenses like antivirus software for your computers and learned to spot phishing emails. But what about the core software your customers directly interact with, the very foundation of your digital storefront?

This is where application security testing becomes critical. And for small businesses, automating this testing—especially through a proactive “shift-left” approach—isn’t just a best practice; it’s a game-changer. Imagine catching a vulnerability in your online store’s checkout process during development, before it ever puts a customer’s payment information at risk. That’s the power of shifting security left.

You don’t need to be a cybersecurity expert to protect these vital digital assets. Our goal is to translate complex security concepts into practical, actionable steps that empower you. Together, let’s build a safer, more resilient online business.

What You’ll Learn: Fortifying Your Small Business Applications

In this essential guide, we’re demystifying the often-overlooked area of application security. We’ll cover:

What Application Security Testing (AST) is and how it fundamentally differs from your general antivirus software.
The powerful concept of “Shift-Left Security” and why proactively catching issues early will save your business significant money and prevent future headaches.
Practical, non-technical steps you can implement today, whether you rely on a website builder or manage custom applications with developers.
Simple strategies for understanding and confidently asking for automated security in your business applications.

Prerequisites: Getting Ready for Proactive Security

Before we dive into the actionable “how-to,” let’s ensure we’re on the same page. All you truly need to gain value from this guide is:

An understanding that your business depends on its online application (your website, e-commerce platform, or any custom digital tool).
A willingness to think proactively about security—to prevent incidents rather than just react to them.
An open mind and a healthy dose of curiosity to ask critical questions of your platform providers or developers. Technical expertise is not required, just a desire to secure your business!

With these foundational understandings, you’re not just ready, you’re empowered to begin fortifying your digital presence. Let’s start by demystifying what application security testing truly entails.

Step 1: Understand Application Security Testing (AST) – Beyond Your Antivirus

Picture your business as a bustling storefront, and your website or application as the very building itself. Your antivirus software acts like a vigilant security guard at the main entrance, designed to stop obvious threats from walking in. But what if there’s a structural flaw—a crack in the foundation, or a faulty lock on a display case inside the building that an attacker could exploit? That’s precisely where Application Security Testing (AST) comes in.

AST focuses on finding and addressing weaknesses within your software itself—the intricate code, configurations, and third-party components that power your website or custom application. Without a proactive approach, your business remains vulnerable to hidden dangers like debilitating data breaches, website defacement, and significant financial losses—incidents that can severely damage your reputation and erode hard-won customer trust.

Why Automate This Process? Manual security checks are akin to a single person trying to inspect every brick in a large building: slow, expensive, inconsistent, and highly prone to missing critical flaws. Automation, however, brings consistency, speed, and comprehensive coverage to the table. It dramatically reduces human error, ensuring that critical vulnerabilities are systematically identified and don’t slip through the cracks. This process helps to automate the detection of issues, ensuring your online presence is continually monitored for weaknesses and proactively defended.

Step 2: Embrace “Shift-Left Security” – Fixing Problems Early for Maximum Impact

The timeless adage, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” perfectly encapsulates the essence of “shift-left security.” Consider constructing a new office building. Would you prefer to discover a leaky pipe during the plumbing installation, or months later after the walls are finished and the office is flooded? Finding and fixing it early is not just better; it’s exponentially more efficient and less damaging.

Shift-left security means purposefully integrating security checks and considerations early in the development lifecycle, rather than treating it as a last-minute chore just before your application launches. By doing so, you catch and fix vulnerabilities when they are easiest to address—often in the design or coding phase—making them significantly cheaper and less disruptive to resolve. The core idea is to shift security thinking to the very beginning of any project.

The Tangible Benefits for Your Business:

Exponential Cost Savings: Fixing a security flaw during the design or development phase is orders of magnitude cheaper—potentially saving your business 10x, 50x, or even 100x the cost of a post-launch fix or a reactive breach response.
Protect Your Reputation and Cultivate Customer Trust: Proactive security is a powerful statement. It demonstrates a steadfast commitment to safeguarding your customers’ data and upholding their confidence. This vigilance helps prevent damaging security incidents that could erode trust and severely impact your brand. (For deeper insights into building trust, explore principles like Zero Trust Security.)
Faster, Smoother, and More Secure Launches: By addressing security issues throughout the development process, you eliminate those last-minute, panic-inducing security emergencies that can cause frustrating delays and cost overruns for your application’s launch.
Enhanced Peace of Mind for Business Owners: Knowing that your applications are robustly protected by systematic security measures significantly reduces the stress and constant worry about potential cyberattacks, allowing you to focus on growing your business.

Step 3: Implement Practical Automated Checks Based on Your Business Setup

Your specific approach to application security will naturally be influenced by how your online presence is constructed. Here’s what you need to carefully consider:

If You Use a Website Builder/Platform (e.g., Shopify, Squarespace, WordPress with plugins):

Keep Everything Updated, Always: This is a non-negotiable bedrock of security. Consistently update your core platform, themes, and all plugins as soon as new versions are released. These updates frequently include critical security patches for newly discovered vulnerabilities.
Strong Passwords & Two-Factor Authentication (2FA): These are your foundational defenses. Use unique, complex passwords for all your administrative accounts and enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) wherever it’s offered.
Choose Reputable Themes & Plugins Wisely: Exercise extreme caution with free or inexpensive third-party add-ons from unknown or unverified sources. They are common vectors for malware or can introduce severe, unpatched security flaws. Always stick to official marketplaces, well-known, trusted developers, and thoroughly vetted solutions.
Leverage Built-in Platform Security Features: Take the time to explore and understand your platform’s inherent security settings. Many providers offer valuable options such as automatic backups, built-in firewalls, and even basic security scanning tools. Understand them, configure them, and utilize them to their fullest potential.

If You Hire Developers or Have Custom Applications:

Start the Security Conversation Early: Security cannot be an afterthought. Make it a central discussion point from the very inception of your project. Proactively ask your developers: “How are you integrating security into the development process for this application?” and “What measures are you taking to ensure its long-term security?”
Inquire About Automated Testing Practices: Directly ask about their specific security testing practices. A crucial question is: “Do you use automated tools to check for vulnerabilities in the code as it’s being written, or during the build process of the application?” This helps you understand their commitment to automating security testing within their development pipeline. (Consider also the role of a Security Champion in CI/CD pipelines for deeper integration.)
Seek Out Security-Minded Developers: Prioritize working with developers who inherently view security as an integral part of their craft, not just an optional extra. They should naturally integrate security into every stage of their workflow, adhering to secure coding principles.
Consider Simple, Accessible Scanners: While you don’t need to become a technical expert, you can ask your developers if they utilize powerful, open-source tools like OWASP ZAP for routine, basic scans. It’s an effective tool capable of performing automated checks for many common web application weaknesses without a significant cost.
Understand That “Done” Is an Ongoing Process for Security: Security is not a one-time checkbox. It’s an evolving discipline. Your application will require continuous monitoring, regular updates, and adaptive defenses as new threats and vulnerabilities inevitably emerge.

Essential Automated Security Checks You Can Implement (or Ask For):

Regardless of your specific setup, these are fundamental, proactive checks that should be continuously running to protect your business:

Automated Website Vulnerability Scans: These specialized tools scan your live website for common weaknesses such as outdated components, insecure forms, misconfigurations, and other identifiable flaws. Many reputable hosting providers now include these scans as part of their standard packages; ensure you activate and review them.
Regular Patch Management: Guarantee that all software critical to your business—from operating systems on servers to any specific server software—is consistently updated and patched without delay. Automated patch management systems are invaluable for handling this crucial task efficiently.
Secure Configurations: Actively verify that any servers, cloud services, or critical software your business uses are configured securely. This means following industry best practices to minimize the ‘attack surface’—the total sum of the different points where an unauthorized user can try to enter or extract data from an environment.

Step 4: Understand Basic Automated Testing Types (No Technical Deep Dive Required!)

As you engage with developers or platform providers, you might encounter specific terms related to security testing. Do not be intimidated! Our aim here is to provide a simple, conceptual breakdown, so you can confidently participate in the conversation:

Static Application Security Testing (SAST): Think of SAST as “checking the blueprint.” SAST tools meticulously scan your application’s source code, bytecode, or binaries before it’s even running. They look for potential flaws like weak encryption, insecure coding practices, or common vulnerabilities. It’s like a careful, expert review of the architectural plans and materials for your building before construction even begins.
Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST): This is akin to “testing the running application.” DAST tools actively simulate real-world attacks on your live, running application, observing how it responds and identifying where its weaknesses lie in real-time. It’s like sending a professional test team to physically try all the doors, windows, and entry points of your completed building to find any vulnerabilities.
Software Composition Analysis (SCA): Consider SCA as “checking the ingredients list.” Most modern applications are not built from scratch; they incorporate numerous third-party components (like open-source libraries or frameworks). SCA tools automatically identify these components and check for known vulnerabilities within them. It’s a crucial step to ensure that none of your building materials or pre-fabricated parts have hidden defects that could compromise the entire structure.

Common Issues & Simple Solutions for Small Businesses

We understand the reality of running a small business: you’re juggling countless responsibilities, and security can often feel overwhelming, inherently expensive, and perhaps even out of reach. But we’re here to tell you that effective application security doesn’t have to be!

Issue: Lack of Expertise / Time.
Solution: You are not expected to become a cybersecurity expert overnight. Instead, focus on building relationships with security-minded partners—developers, IT consultants, or platform providers—who already embed these essential practices into their services. If you utilize a website builder, thoroughly leverage their documentation and support resources for security best practices. For those with the budget, consider investing in managed security services that can handle these complexities for you.
Issue: Budget Constraints.
Solution: Start with the fundamentals; many crucial security steps are free! Keeping all your software updated and rigorously using strong, unique passwords with 2FA are impactful, no-cost defenses. Maximize your leverage of built-in platform security features. For custom applications, openly discuss cost-effective automated testing tools with your developers. Many robust open-source tools (like OWASP ZAP, which we mentioned earlier) can provide significant value without a hefty price tag.
Issue: Overwhelm.
Solution: Avoid the trap of trying to do everything at once. Start small and strategically. Select one or two areas from Step 3 that are most relevant to your business and implement them diligently. Prioritize fixing the most critical vulnerabilities—those that pose the biggest immediate risks to your data, customers, and business continuity. Remember, even small, consistent steps in security make a profound difference over time.

Advanced Tips for a More Secure Future

Once you’ve firmly established the foundational security practices, you may want to explore advanced strategies to further fortify your defenses. These are strategic concepts you can confidently discuss with your developers or dedicated security partners:

Continuous Security: Remember, security is not a single point in time, but an ongoing, dynamic process. Implementing continuous automated testing means your applications are constantly scanned for new vulnerabilities and misconfigurations as they evolve through updates and new features. This ensures your defenses adapt to emerging threats.
DevSecOps: This represents a more deeply integrated approach where security is seamlessly embedded into every single stage of your software development and operations lifecycle. It fosters a pervasive mindset that “everyone is responsible for security,” transforming it from a bottleneck into an accelerator.
Regular Security Audits and Penetration Testing: For your most critical applications, consider engaging external security professionals for periodic security audits or penetration testing. These experts offer a fresh, unbiased perspective on your application’s resilience, actively simulating real-world attacks to uncover hidden weaknesses and help you fortify your cloud security and overall digital defenses.

Next Steps: Taking Proactive Control of Your Application’s Security

You now possess a clearer understanding and practical knowledge. You’re equipped to ask the right questions and take truly meaningful, proactive action. Do not allow the perceived complexity of cybersecurity to deter you. Your immediate next steps should include:

Immediately checking your website builder or platform’s administration panel for any available updates and ensuring Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) is enabled on all admin accounts.
Initiating an open and informed conversation with your developers about their existing automated security testing practices and how they plan to integrate “shift-left” principles.
Actively exploring how you can leverage simple, automated vulnerability scans to regularly assess the security posture of your online presence.

Your application’s security is undoubtedly an ongoing journey, not a destination. However, by embracing automation and consistently shifting security “left,” you’re not just passively reacting to threats. Instead, you are actively building a resilient, trustworthy online presence that genuinely empowers your business to thrive securely.

Conclusion: Your Business, Automated, and Secure

Automating application security testing and adopting a “shift-left” approach might initially sound technical, but its benefits for small businesses are profound and unequivocally clear: superior protection against ever-evolving cyber threats, significant cost savings achieved by identifying and fixing issues early, and a stronger, more trusted reputation with your valuable customers. You absolutely do not need to become a cybersecurity guru to achieve this; you simply need to be proactive, informed, and willing to ask the right questions.

Taking decisive control of your application’s security is one of the smartest, most impactful investments you can make in your business’s future. It’s about empowering yourself and your team to establish a safer, more reliable digital foundation. You’ve gained invaluable insights today, and with these, you are well-prepared to secure your digital assets.