Coding Without the Cracks: A Training Course on Secure Application Development, UK Standards
1Summary
Most breaches do not start with a sophisticated zero-day exploit. They start with a form field that never validated its input, a session token that never expired, or a password check with a hole in it. Application security lives or dies in the code itself, long before any firewall gets a chance to help.
This Training Course, delivered by Arab British Fellowship Training Academy, teaches developers, testers and security specialists how to build applications that do not give attackers an easy way in. It covers the most exploited vulnerabilities, secure coding techniques, and how to weave security into every phase of the development lifecycle, all aligned with UK standards such as the Cyber Essentials Scheme and ISO/IEC 27034.
2Objectives and target group
For everyone whose work touches the code, from writing it to running it:
- Software developers and engineers looking to sharpen their secure coding practices.
- IT security specialists reviewing and testing application security.
- QA engineers building security testing into the quality assurance process.
- DevOps engineers securing CI/CD pipelines, and project managers overseeing secure development.
What You’ll Take Away
- The core principles of application security and why secure coding matters more than ever.
- The ability to identify and mitigate common vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, XSS and broken authentication.
- Practical alignment with UK standards, including the Cyber Essentials Scheme and ISO/IEC 27034.
- Secure coding techniques woven into the software development lifecycle.
- Hands-on familiarity with basic application security testing and vulnerability assessment.
3Course Content
Module 1: Why Secure Coding Is Non-Negotiable
- What application security really means in practice.
- The developer’s role as the first line of defence.
Module 2: Working Within UK Security Standards
- The Cyber Essentials Scheme and what it expects from development teams.
- ISO/IEC 27034 and how it applies to secure application development.
Module 3: The Vulnerability Hall of Fame: Injection and XSS
- How SQL injection attacks work, and how to prevent them.
- Cross-site scripting: the mechanics and the fixes.
Module 4: When Authentication Breaks
- Common flaws in authentication and session management.
- Building session handling that does not leave a door open.
Module 5: Validating Input, Encoding Output
- Why unchecked input is behind so many exploits.
- Practical input validation and output encoding techniques.
Module 6: Errors, Logs and What They Reveal
- Handling errors without leaking sensitive information.
- Logging practices that help defenders, not attackers.
Module 7: Catching Issues Before They Ship
- Building security into the code review process.
- Threat modeling and risk assessment as a design-stage habit.
Module 8: Security Built Into the SDLC
- Embedding security checkpoints across every phase of the development lifecycle.
- Making security a shared responsibility, not a final gate.
Module 9: Testing Like an Attacker
- Security testing techniques that mirror real-world attacks.
- The basics of penetration testing for application code.
Module 10: Deploying and Running Securely
- Secure deployment practices that protect the release process.
- Cloud security considerations for hosted applications.
- Responding to and recovering from incidents once an application is live.
Module 11: Cryptography, Dependencies and Zero Trust
- Cryptographic practices developers need to get right.
- Managing the security risk of third-party libraries and dependencies.
- Zero trust architecture as a design principle for modern applications.