Originally published on TechSaaS Cloud

Originally published on TechSaaS Cloud

The 5-Minute Docker Compose Security Checklist We Run for Every Client

We've reviewed Docker Compose configurations for over 30 startups. These three security holes appear in every single one. Without exception.

They're trivial to fix. Most teams just never do because nobody tells them until something goes wrong.

Hole #1: Ports Bound to 0.0.0.0

The most common Docker Compose pattern:

services : postgres : image : postgres:16 ports : - " 5432:5432" # ← This is 0.0.0.0:5432

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That "5432:5432" is shorthand for "0.0.0.0:5432:5432" . Your database is now accessible from every network interface — including the public internet if your host has a public IP.

We've seen production Postgres instances exposed to the internet with default credentials.…