When it comes to building secure and compliant software, speed and safety don’t have to compete. Shift Left Security is changing the game for SaaS companies and other businesses by moving security and compliance to the front of the software development lifecycle (SDLC). The result? Fewer vulnerabilities, lower remediation costs, faster development, and a clearer path to compliance frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001, and HIPAA.
In this article, we’ll explore what Shift Left Security is, why it’s a must-have for compliance-minded teams, and how small and midsized businesses can implement it effectively—with or without a dedicated security department.
Shift Left Security integrates security and compliance early in the software development lifecycle (SDLC), reducing risk and lowering costs.
Proactive security helps meet frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001, and HIPAA without last-minute scrambles.
Businesses benefit from faster development, fewer breaches, and easier audit readiness.
Despite some adoption challenges, tools, training, and cultural alignment can pave the way.
BEMO’s Managed Compliance helps SMBs implement shift left strategies without needing to build everything in-house.
Shift Left Security is the practice of addressing security and compliance concerns as early as possible in the development process—starting with design and continuing through development, testing, and deployment. Traditionally, security and compliance were addressed towards the end of the development process, often leading to rushed fixes and higher costs. By shifting left, teams can identify and mitigate vulnerabilities earlier when they are easier and cheaper to resolve.
Fundamental elements include proactive identification of risks, empowering development teams with the right tools and knowledge, and continuous testing to create feedback loops that ensure security throughout the development lifecycle.
Addressing security and compliance late in the development cycle can lead to rushed fixes and compliance failures.
If you're aiming for SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification, you can’t afford to treat compliance as an afterthought. These frameworks expect security to be baked into how your business operates—and that includes your software development practices.
Shift left helps by:
Embedding compliance requirements directly into your SDLC
Reducing the likelihood of last-minute audit surprises
Building a stronger, audit-ready security posture from the start
Whether you’re building your first MVP or scaling rapidly, early integration of compliance makes future audits less painful and significantly faster.
Shift Left Security isn’t just about catching bugs earlier—it’s about creating a development process that naturally prioritizes speed, efficiency, and resilience. For small and midsized businesses (SMBs), the benefits go beyond technical performance—they directly impact business growth and revenue.
Think of your development process like building a house. If you wait until the roof is on to discover that the foundation is cracked, it’s going to take time and money to fix—and delay your move-in date. The same is true for software. When security is introduced early, issues are found and fixed during coding, not after launch. This means fewer bottlenecks, faster delivery, and happier stakeholders.
Example: A SaaS startup using shift left tactics might push updates weekly instead of monthly, gaining a competitive edge in a fast-moving market.
According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report, the average cost of a data breach in 2023 was $4.45 million. For SMBs, even a fraction of that can be devastating. Shift left security allows you to detect and remediate issues when they’re cheapest to fix—often 10x to 100x cheaper than fixing them after deployment.
Bonus value: You’ll also avoid the hidden costs—downtime, loss of customer trust, and regulatory penalties.
Embedding security into every phase of development reduces the number of critical vulnerabilities that reach production. This reduces your exposure to threats and builds customer trust.
If you’ve ever scrambled to gather screenshots, audit logs, or process documentation for a last-minute audit, you know how painful compliance can be when it’s an afterthought.
With shift left, compliance becomes a byproduct of your workflow—documentation, logging, and access controls are built in from the start.
Example: Teams using tools like Drata alongside secure coding practices can reduce audit prep from weeks to hours.
For SMBs, these benefits aren’t just “nice to have”—they’re mission-critical. Shift left security saves time, saves money, and protects your future.
Adopting a shift left mindset often requires a cultural shift. Teams may worry that security will slow them down, but the opposite is usually true.
Most developers aren’t security experts—and they shouldn’t have to be. But without basic knowledge of secure coding practices (like input validation, access controls, or proper data handling), mistakes are inevitable.
Solution: Invest in lightweight training modules that are relevant and role-specific. From our personal experience, at BEMO we trust our security awareness training efforts to KnowBe4.
Teams may assume security will slow them down or complicate their process. This resistance is often cultural—stemming from siloed operations or fear of being blamed when things go wrong.
Solution: Start small. Choose one project to pilot shift left practices. Demonstrate how security can speed things up and prevent headaches. Once they see results, adoption grows.
There are countless security tools on the market, and integrating them into your CI/CD pipeline can feel overwhelming—especially if your team doesn’t have a dedicated DevOps engineer.
Solution: Choose tools that prioritize automation, ease of integration, and low noise (to reduce alert fatigue). A managed service provider like BEMO can also help configure and maintain these tools for you.
Without support from leadership, shift left initiatives often stall. Security needs to be viewed as a shared responsibility—not just a checkbox for the IT team.
Solution: Frame security as a business enabler, not a blocker. Highlight how it helps close deals, builds trust, and protects brand reputation.
With the right support and small wins, even teams with limited bandwidth can shift left successfully.
You don’t need to overhaul everything overnight. Here’s a realistic path to begin integrating shift left practices into your business:
Start with the basics. Give developers simple, practical guidance on secure coding. Cover common pitfalls and provide cheat sheets or code review checklists. Make it easy and non-intimidating.
Pro tip: Encourage pair programming or peer reviews focused on spotting security flaws early.
Manual reviews are useful but time-consuming. Automating tests during the development cycle (like SAST and DAST tools) helps catch errors without slowing down the team.
SAST (Static Application Security Testing): scans source code before it runs.
DAST (Dynamic Application Security Testing): tests running applications for flaws.
Pro Tip: Add open-source dependency scanning to catch vulnerabilities in your code libraries.
Security shouldn't be a separate step—it should be part of the process. Integrate security scans into your build and deployment pipelines. Fail builds if critical issues are found, and create feedback loops so devs know how to fix them.
Break down the walls between development, security, and operations. Encourage collaboration, shared responsibility, and fast feedback loops. Make security a team sport.
Pro tip: Host a "Security Sprint" once per quarter to clean up debt and review risks together.
You don’t have to do this alone. For SMBs, it’s often more effective (and affordable) to partner with an expert like BEMO than to build a security team from scratch.
At BEMO, we help growing companies build security and compliance into their development process from day one. With our Managed Compliance services, you don’t need a full in-house team to achieve SOC 2, ISO 27001, or HIPAA compliance. We provide:
Expert guidance and automated tools
Continuous monitoring and support
A simplified path to certification
You can check all the details in our cybersecurity for small businesses page or managed compliance for small businesses page, depending on what peeks your interest.
If you're ready to develop software faster, safer, and fully compliant, book a demo with BEMO today. Let us help you shift left—and move forward with confidence.