7 Simple Ways Small Businesses Can Protect Serverless Apps from Cyber Threats

You’ve likely heard the buzz about serverless applications – they’re incredibly powerful tools for small businesses, promising cost savings, immense scalability, and streamlined operations. Imagine running your applications without the headache of managing actual servers; it’s like using electricity without worrying about the power plant. It’s efficient, it’s modern, and for many businesses, it’s the future.

But with great power comes great responsibility, especially in the realm of cybersecurity. While serverless technologies offer fantastic advantages, they also introduce new security considerations that you, as a small business owner, simply couldn’t ignore. We’re talking about protecting your critical data, maintaining customer trust, and ensuring your business operations remain uninterrupted. It’s not just about managing code; it’s about protecting your entire digital environment from potential threats.

Many assume “serverless” means “no security worries” because a cloud provider handles the infrastructure. This couldn’t be further from the truth. We call it the “shared responsibility model.” Your cloud provider secures the underlying physical infrastructure – the “cloud” itself. But you are responsible for securing “in the cloud” – your code, your data, your configurations, and your access management, a process often aided by expert cloud penetration testing. Neglecting this could leave your business vulnerable to data breaches, financial loss, and severe reputation damage. Cyber threats are constantly evolving, and serverless architecture, while innovative, can present new targets or amplify existing risks. Attackers are becoming more adept at finding the weak points in these distributed systems, and we’ve got to be one step ahead.

You don’t need to be a cybersecurity expert to understand and mitigate these risks. We’ve distilled the most impactful serverless security strategies into 7 actionable ways for small business owners. These aren’t just technical mandates; they’re practical steps to empower you to take control of your digital security posture and ask the right questions of your technical teams.

7 Ways to Secure Your Serverless Applications

1. Give Only What’s Necessary: The Principle of Least Privilege

This is a foundational security concept, and it’s especially critical in serverless environments, aligning perfectly with the principles of Zero Trust. It means every function, every user, and every service should only have the bare minimum permissions required to perform its specific task, and nothing more. Think of it like giving a janitor keys only to the rooms they need to clean, not the CEO’s office or the vault. Why would we give them access to the whole building?

Why It Made the List: This principle drastically limits the potential damage if one part of your application is compromised. If an attacker gains access to a function that only has permission to read a specific database, they can’t then use that access to delete your entire customer list or launch new malicious functions. A small breach remains a small breach, not a catastrophic one that could sink your business.

Best For: Guiding conversations with your development team or cloud provider. You should ask them, “Are our serverless functions and applications operating with the absolute least amount of access privilege possible?” Ensure they have a strategy for auditing and enforcing this. It’s a critical first line of defense.

Pros:

Minimizes attack surface and impact of a breach.
Reduces the risk of insider threats and accidental misconfigurations.
Promotes better security hygiene across your entire serverless architecture.

Cons:

Requires careful planning and configuration during development.
Can be challenging to implement initially in complex applications.

2. Guard Your Digital Front Door: Secure API Gateways & Input Validation

Your API Gateway serves as the primary entry point, the digital front door, for virtually all traffic entering your serverless applications. It’s like the security checkpoint at an airport, where every bag and passenger is scrutinized before entering. Alongside this, “input validation” is the process of ensuring that only safe, expected, and correctly formatted data can pass through this checkpoint to your application’s core functions.

Why It Made the List: Without a robust API Gateway and strict input validation, malicious data – such as “event data injection” attacks (where attackers try to sneak harmful commands into the data you send) – can easily slip through. These attacks can lead to unauthorized data access, system disruption, or even full application takeover. Properly securing this front door prevents a wide range of common web-based attacks from ever reaching your valuable backend functions and is a core component of a robust API security strategy.

Best For: Protecting your applications from common web vulnerabilities. You need to verify with your team that your cloud setup includes an API Gateway, and crucially, ask about its security features. How is incoming data checked? Are there rules to block suspicious traffic before it even touches your serverless functions?

Pros:

Blocks a significant percentage of common web attacks at the entry point.
Provides a centralized point for security policy enforcement.
Offers capabilities like rate limiting to prevent denial-of-service attacks.

Cons:

Requires careful configuration of validation rules.
Can add a slight latency if poorly optimized.

3. Keep a Close Watch: Robust Monitoring & Logging

Imagine running a physical business without security cameras or visitor logs. You’d never know who came in, what they did, or if anything suspicious happened. Robust monitoring and logging in your serverless environment are precisely that: installing comprehensive digital security cameras and keeping meticulous records of every action and event. We need to see who’s doing what, when, and where within your application.

Why It Made the List: This is absolutely essential for proactive threat detection. Without it, you’re flying blind. You won’t know if someone is attempting unauthorized access, if a function is behaving abnormally, or if an attack has already occurred. Effective monitoring allows you to detect suspicious activity quickly, identify attacks in progress, and, critically, understand what exactly happened after a security incident, helping you recover and prevent future occurrences. It’s your early warning system and your forensic trail.

Best For: Early detection of threats and post-incident analysis. Discuss with your IT team or cloud provider how your serverless activity is continuously monitored. Ask how often logs are reviewed for anomalies and who is responsible for responding to alerts. Do you have automated alerts for unusual activity?

Pros:

Enables rapid detection of security incidents.
Provides crucial data for forensic analysis and compliance.
Helps identify and fix performance bottlenecks.

Cons:

Can generate a large volume of data, requiring intelligent filtering.
Costs can increase with extensive logging and monitoring solutions.

4. Lock Up Your Secrets: Data Encryption & Secrets Management

In our digital world, your data is gold, and your credentials are the keys to the vault. Data encryption means scrambling your valuable information so that only authorized parties with the correct key can read it, both when it’s stored (data at rest) and when it’s moving across networks (data in transit). Secrets management is like having a high-security digital safe specifically for sensitive information such as API keys, database credentials, and critical passwords, ensuring they are never exposed in plain text.

Why It Made the List: This duo provides critical protection for your business and customer data. Even if an attacker somehow manages to breach your system, encrypted data would be unreadable, rendering it useless to them. Similarly, proper secrets management prevents attackers from finding critical access credentials hardcoded in your application code or easily accessible, which are prime targets for gaining deeper access to your systems. We’re building layers of defense around your most valuable assets.

Best For: Protecting your business’s sensitive data and preventing credential theft. You must verify with your team that all sensitive data used by your serverless applications is encrypted by default. Additionally, ensure that all credentials and API keys are stored and managed using a dedicated secrets management service, and are never hardcoded directly into your application’s code.

Pros:

Renders stolen data unreadable without the encryption key.
Centralizes and secures sensitive credentials, reducing human error.
Helps meet compliance requirements for data protection.

Cons:

Improper key management can render data inaccessible.
Requires integration with cloud provider services, which can add complexity.

5. Build with Strong Foundations: Secure Code & Dependency Management

Every serverless application is built on layers: your unique code and, almost always, numerous “off-the-shelf” components known as third-party dependencies or libraries. Think of these dependencies as pre-built bricks or modules you use to construct your application. Ensuring both your own code and all these external components are secure is fundamentally critical. Even one weak link can compromise the entire structure, just like a building with a faulty beam.

Why It Made the List: Vulnerabilities within your custom code or in any of the third-party components you rely on can be exploited by attackers. These vulnerabilities might be coding errors, outdated components with known flaws, or even malicious packages introduced into the software supply chain. Regularly reviewing your code for security flaws and diligently managing and updating your dependencies are crucial to maintaining a robust security posture and securing your software supply chain.

Best For: Preventing vulnerabilities stemming from your application’s building blocks. Ask your developers about their processes for conducting security reviews of their code. How do they choose, manage, and regularly update third-party libraries and components to ensure they are free from known security flaws? Are they using tools to scan for these vulnerabilities?

Pros:

Directly addresses the root cause of many application vulnerabilities.
Reduces the risk of supply chain attacks.
Improves overall code quality and maintainability.

Cons:

Requires developer expertise and dedicated time for security practices.
Keeping dependencies updated can sometimes introduce compatibility issues.

6. Set Up Safely: Secure Configurations from the Start

When you deploy serverless applications using a cloud provider, you’re given a myriad of settings and features to configure. “Secure configurations” means ensuring that all these settings are properly hardened, not just left at their default, often permissive, states. It’s like buying a new house and making sure all the locks are changed, the alarm system is activated, and windows aren’t left open by default – you wouldn’t just trust factory settings, would you?

Why It Made the List: Misconfigurations are consistently cited as one of the leading causes of security breaches in cloud environments, with attackers actively seeking ways to exploit misconfigured cloud storage or other oversights. Attackers actively scan for these oversights, looking for publicly exposed storage buckets, overly permissive network rules, or unpatched systems. By meticulously securing your configurations from day one, you close off many common avenues for attack and significantly reduce your attack surface. It’s about building a solid, impermeable perimeter around your serverless functions and data, ensuring your business stays secure.

Best For: Preventing breaches due to preventable setup errors. Ensure your team follows cloud security best practices for all serverless deployments, going beyond default settings. Establish a routine for regularly auditing configurations to catch any deviations or new vulnerabilities, ensuring your security posture remains robust, helping to secure your digital assets.

Pros:

Eliminates a very common and easily exploitable attack vector.
Establishes a strong security baseline for all deployments.
Often inexpensive to implement if done correctly from the start.

Cons:

Requires knowledge of cloud provider security settings.
Can be time-consuming to audit manually across many services.

7. Control Who Gets In: Strong Authentication & Authorization

Authentication is how you verify someone’s identity – proving they are who they say they are (like showing your ID). Authorization then determines what that verified person is allowed to do within your application (like a bouncer letting you into certain VIP areas but not others). Together, they are your access control system for users interacting with your serverless applications, and strong methods like multi-factor authentication (MFA) or exploring options like passwordless authentication are paramount.

Why It Made the List: Weak authentication and authorization are prime targets for attackers. If credentials are stolen or guessed, unauthorized users can gain access to your serverless applications, potentially viewing sensitive data, altering business logic, or launching further attacks. Implementing strong authentication (like requiring a password and a code from your phone) and carefully defining what each user role is authorized to do prevents identity theft, account takeovers, and unauthorized access to your valuable business resources and customer information. We’re making it extremely difficult for the wrong people to get in or do things they shouldn’t.

Best For: Preventing unauthorized access to your applications and data. Insist on strong authentication, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), for accessing all your business applications, especially those connected to serverless functions. Ensure that your team implements proper access controls and roles, regularly reviewing who has access to what, and that it adheres to the principle of least privilege.

Pros:

Significantly reduces the risk of unauthorized access and account takeovers.
Enhances data protection and compliance.
Adds a critical layer of defense against phishing and credential stuffing.

Cons:

Can sometimes add minor friction to the user experience.
Requires consistent policy enforcement and user education.

Serverless Security at a Glance: Comparison Table

Security Measure	Core Benefit for SMBs	Key Action for You
1. Least Privilege	Limits damage from breaches	Ask developers to minimize access
2. Secure API Gateways	Blocks malicious data at entry	Verify API Gateway security features
3. Monitoring & Logging	Detects threats quickly	Discuss log review & alert systems
4. Data Encryption & Secrets	Protects sensitive data	Ensure encryption & secrets management
5. Secure Code & Dependencies	Prevents vulnerabilities from code	Ask about code reviews & updates
6. Secure Configurations	Closes common attack vectors	Audit settings, go beyond defaults
7. Auth & Authorization	Prevents unauthorized access	Insist on MFA & access controls

Conclusion

Serverless applications undoubtedly offer amazing benefits for small businesses, from agility to cost efficiency. However, these advantages don’t come without a need for proactive, intelligent security. As we’ve seen, it’s not a “set it and forget it” solution; it demands your attention and strategic oversight.

Serverless security isn’t just a technical detail for your developers; it’s a critical business imperative. Neglecting it could lead to devastating data breaches, financial losses, and irreparable damage to your reputation. We’ve armed you with the essential knowledge to start safeguarding your serverless assets.

Now it’s time to take action. Discuss these seven vital points with your IT team or cloud provider. Ask the tough questions, understand their strategies, and if needed, seek professional cybersecurity guidance. Prioritizing serverless security today is an investment in your business’s resilience, its future, and your peace of mind.