Ship software that doesn't make the news
SecureStack Academy turns developers and DevOps engineers into security-first builders — teaching you to find, fix, and prevent real-world vulnerabilities layer by layer, directly inside the stack you already work in.
Security isn't a phase at the end of the sprint — it's a property you either design in from the start or spend the rest of your career patching out.— Jason Ford
What you'll learn
What you'll be able to do
- Identify and remediate the OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities directly in your own codebase
- Design a layered security architecture across frontend, backend, and infrastructure
- Implement automated security scanning (SAST/DAST) inside a CI/CD pipeline
- Write threat models for new features before a single line of code is committed
- Harden containers, cloud IAM policies, and secrets management in production environments
- Conduct a structured security audit of an existing application stack and produce an actionable remediation report
How it works
A school that adapts to you
This isn't a set of static videos. Every lesson is generated live and tuned to where you actually are.
We learn your level
A quick placement check tailors your starting point so you're never bored or lost.
Lessons adapt as you go
Each lesson is written for your pace and your goal, adjusting as your skills grow.
Your AI coach keeps you moving
Checkpoints, feedback, and gentle nudges turn progress into a real result.
The curriculum
What's inside your school
6 modules · 18 lessons
Security Foundations for Developers
Establishes the essential mental models, vocabulary, and code-reading skills every developer needs before touching any security tooling. This module is a prerequisite for all others — it ensures learners share a common threat language and understand how vulnerabilities are born, live, and die inside a software lifecycle.
- 1.1Thinking Like an AttackerIncluded
- 1.2The Vulnerability Lifecycle & Secure SDLCIncluded
- 1.3Reading Code for Security FlawsIncluded
OWASP Top 10 — Find It, Fix It, Prove It
Provides deep, hands-on coverage of all ten OWASP categories so learners can locate each class of vulnerability in real code, apply a verified fix, and write a proof-of-concept to confirm both the flaw and the remediation. Sequenced after Foundations so learners arrive with the code-reading skill needed to move fast.
- 2.1Injection, Broken Authentication & Cryptographic FailuresIncluded
- 2.2Broken Access Control, Security Misconfigurations & Vulnerable ComponentsIncluded
- 2.3XSS, SSRF, Insecure Deserialization & Logging FailuresIncluded
Threat Modeling Before You Build
Teaches learners to systematically identify, prioritise, and document threats at design time — before code is written — so that security decisions are baked in rather than bolted on. Placed after OWASP so learners bring concrete vulnerability knowledge to the threat-modeling table, and before the CI/CD module because threat model outputs drive what gates to automate.
- 3.1Threat Modeling Fundamentals & Data Flow DiagramsIncluded
- 3.2STRIDE Threat Modeling from ScratchIncluded
- 3.3Making Threat Modeling a Team RitualIncluded
Automated Security in Your CI/CD Pipeline
Shows learners how to embed SAST, secrets detection, DAST, dependency scanning, and hard security gates directly into a CI/CD pipeline so that security feedback is automatic, fast, and blocking. Sequenced after Threat Modeling so learners can trace each automated check back to a threat model mitigation, making the tooling purposeful rather than checkbox-driven.
- 4.1CI/CD Pipeline Security ArchitectureIncluded
- 4.2SAST & Secrets Detection in the PipelineIncluded
- 4.3DAST, Dependency Scanning & Security GatesIncluded
Hardening Containers, Cloud IAM & Secrets Management
Translates security principles into production-grade hardening across three tightly related infrastructure layers: container images and runtimes, cloud identity and access management, and secrets lifecycle management. Sequenced after the CI/CD module so learners can immediately integrate hardening checks into the pipelines they just built.
- 5.1Container Security — From Dockerfile to RuntimeIncluded
- 5.2Cloud IAM — Writing Least-Privilege PoliciesIncluded
- 5.3Secrets Management — Zero Secrets in Code or ConfigIncluded
Security Auditing & Producing the Remediation Report
Caps the course by having learners apply every prior skill — attacker mindset, OWASP knowledge, threat modeling, automated tooling, and hardening — to conduct a structured end-to-end security audit of a realistic application stack and communicate findings as a professional, actionable remediation report. This module is intentionally last: it is the integration capstone.
- 6.1Designing & Scoping a Structured Security AuditIncluded
- 6.2Executing the Structured Security AuditIncluded
- 6.3Writing the Actionable Remediation ReportIncluded
Who it's for
Is this you?
Full-Stack Developers
You write the code — this course teaches you to read it the way an attacker does and fix vulnerabilities before they ever hit production.
DevOps Engineers
You own the pipeline and the infrastructure — learn to embed SAST, DAST, secrets detection, and security gates so security ships with every build.
Junior Security Professionals
You're breaking into AppSec and need a structured, technical foundation — threat modeling, OWASP, and audit methodology all in one curriculum.
Backend Engineers
APIs, auth flows, and data pipelines are high-value attack surfaces — get precise on injection, broken access control, and cryptographic failures in your own stack.
Cloud & Platform Engineers
Least-privilege IAM, container hardening, and zero-secrets-in-config aren't aspirations anymore — this course makes them concrete, repeatable engineering practice.
Tech Leads & Senior Engineers
You set the standard for your team — leave with threat modeling rituals, structured audit skills, and a security architecture your whole team can own.
Questions
Frequently asked
Your teacher
A note from your teacher
Jason Ford
If you're a developer or DevOps engineer who's ever pushed code and quietly wondered whether it would hold up under real scrutiny — this course was written for you.
Maybe you've shipped features that passed code review but you weren't sure anyone was actually looking for security issues. Maybe your pipeline has a Dependabot badge and you're hoping that counts. Maybe someone asked you to "do a security audit" of a service and you improvised something that felt more like wishful thinking than an actual audit. That gap between writing code and writing secure code is exactly what SecureStack Academy is designed to close.
This curriculum covers what I've consistently seen missing on engineering teams that aren't primarily security-focused: a real attacker's mental model, systematic vulnerability identification across the full OWASP Top 10, threat modeling that happens before the PR is open, and security tooling that's embedded in the pipeline rather than bolted on at the compliance deadline. We go all the way from reading code for security flaws to hardening containers, locking down cloud IAM policies to least-privilege, and keeping secrets out of config files and environment variables where they don't belong.
The audit module in particular is something I built because most developers are never taught how to formally assess a codebase they didn't write — how to scope it, execute it systematically, and produce a report that engineers and stakeholders can both understand and act on. That's a professional skill, and it's teachable.
I won't pretend this is easy material. Security is adversarial by nature — you're learning to think like someone who wants to break what you build. But I also won't make it needlessly opaque. Every concept here is taught with the precision it requires and the clarity it deserves. No buzzword bingo. No vague "best practices." Just the actual techniques, applied to real scenarios.
If you're ready to stop hoping your code is secure and start being able to demonstrate that it is — come build with us.
— Jason Ford
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- 6 modules, 18 lessons
- AI-adaptive lessons tuned to your level
- Quizzes & checkpoints to lock in progress
- Your own AI learning coach
- Learn on any device, at your pace
- Full access for as long as you're subscribed