Using Rust and AI in a Startup to Protect Sensitive Data

For early-stage startups, secure data storage is literally a matter of survival. Statistics show that small companies are the most vulnerable to malicious attacks—87% of them hold data that could be compromised. At the startup stage, such incidents can lead not only to conflicts with clients and partners but even to the complete shutdown of the company.

Dmitrii Kuklin, a senior software engineer with over 13 years of experience, has been developing security solutions based on Rust and AI for many years. He integrates these technologies into product development to create software capable of intelligent, systematic threat analysis and prevention. Dmitrii believes that modern startups need a decentralized approach with strong encryption to protect every byte of data. In this article, he shares how he builds such solutions and how they help prevent projects from collapsing.

Why Startups Need Smarter Security Approaches

"I think most startups tend to postpone security issues because, at the very beginning, they have fewer resources and a lot more urgent tasks before entering a bigger market," Dmitrii reflects. "When you're focused on launching your product and finding your niche, you don't always calculate all the possible risks in advance." He has seen more than once how projects become easy targets for attacks simply because they overlook basic security measures.

According to public reports, young startups most often suffer from phishing and social engineering attacks. If a team hasn't undergone proper cybersecurity training, it easily falls victim to fake emails or infected libraries. This happens especially often when teams try to cut costs and use unverified or pirated software versions.

Other threats come from the lack of clear access control—centralized password storage, shared credentials, and similar practices. And when startups integrate with external services, their attack surface expands even more.

"The era of old-fashioned security systems is ending. Decentralized architectures and AI-driven monitoring have long existed, and together they don't just 'fix' problems—they prevent them. A system capable of analysis is capable of defense before an attack begins," Dmitrii believes. In his projects, he often applies Rust and AI for strong encryption and automated analytics. Such systems eliminate the human factor, minimize obvious mistakes, work and monitor around the clock, and encrypt data so intelligently that, even if stolen, it becomes useless to attackers.

"Security stops being a luxury once you realize how much you can lose from a single breach or error," Dmitrii Kuklin explains. "A few adjustments to the system with tools available to almost any engineer—and your project won't end up in the unfortunate statistics of failed startups."

How Rust Enhances Security and Reliability

Dmitrii Kuklin is a big enthusiast of Rust—and for good reason. First, Rust enforces strict control over memory and threads, preventing many types of vulnerabilities from even compiling. When it comes to critical data, this level of security is essential. Secondly, Rust efficiently handles parallel data without conflicts. It does not use a garbage collector, yet remains fast and responsive. Most importantly, it allows developers to create highly decentralized and secure applications.

One of Dmitrii's examples is MetaSecret, an app designed for secure storage of seed phrases. Unlike traditional password managers, it splits the secret into three parts locally—without using a central server—encrypts them with the Integrated Encryption Scheme, and distributes them across multiple devices. If an attacker gains access to one phone or device, they would still need approval from at least two others to unlock the data. In the future, Dmitrii plans to make the app cross-platform and capable of storing not only text data but also other types of sensitive information, even offline. Such solutions can be adopted by young startups to ensure their most valuable information remains protected through decentralization.

"Rust helps build the foundation for any secure digital infrastructure from mobile devices to web and desktop systems. When combined with technologies like AI, it enables distributed storage, multithreading, and reliability. I'm working to make these kinds of solutions accessible even to smaller projects," Dmitrii says.

Integrating AI for Threat Detection and Decision-Making

Rust ensures security at the code level by managing memory, threads, and data access. However, these measures are insufficient if the system is already connected to the network. Greater security can be achieved through behavioral analytics and early detection of violations thanks to AI.

AI monitors the system's behavior in real time and spots any irregularities—a sudden spike in traffic, unusual requests, or attempts to access encrypted files. Combined with Rust-based infrastructure, it enables systems to respond before an attack occurs. This approach is especially useful for distributed applications that rely on multiple devices: if something goes wrong on one node, the others remain protected. Even in simpler architectures, Dmitrii believes that Rust's decentralization and AI's objective analytics together create a strong security layer—one that helps safeguard products even in their early stages.

Building the Future of Secure and Intelligent Systems

The combination of Rust and AI is becoming a new security standard. Rust ensures stability and speed, while AI detects threats early and prevents damage, allowing projects to achieve both performance and protection from the start.

Dmitrii Kuklin believes that even minimal investment in such systems gives teams a strong advantage through encrypted data, fast analytics, and reliable protection. "It's better to build security early than to fix it later at triple the cost," he says. Rust and AI work together to make digital products that are fast, safe, and strong.