Elevated security intelligence: Guided courses helping developers get NIST-ready
There have been some very welcome movements in the cybersecurity industry of late. It seems that sentiment around prioritizing security in software builds, as early as possible, is starting to improve in many organizations. This, coupled with official measures like Biden’s Executive Order on cybersecurity, has made it abundantly clear that everyone needs to be doing their part to ensure software security and data safety. What is especially exciting is that the conversation around the role of the developer in maintaining secure coding standards continues to evolve, even at the government level.
However, there is something missing from the conversation. The Executive Order suggests that developers need verified security skills, yet no such official certification currently exists. Many companies remain guided by NIST (who provided updated guidelines in response to the EO) in their quest for compliance and higher standards of software security, but if we’re thinking of strategies to significantly reduce vulnerabilities, while incorporating the right tools and maintaining release velocity, most are simply too generic to create the desired outcome. This is where a lot of companies become unstuck, persevering with limited developer training, or not building upon general foundations to enable them with practical, hands-on skills.
Security-aware developers do not grow on trees, but they can be nurtured and elevated much quicker with the right tools. To that end, we’re pleased to announce our own proprietary course for NIST compliance, as structured by the guidelines of the US Government’s Executive Order.
Meaningful, code-level support for developers
Using the NIST guidelines for Executive Order-critical (EO-critical) software here, we structured the course to hit the five key objectives that will, ultimately, improve the security of vital software in use at the highest levels of government, and should ideally act as a benchmark for higher quality development from the ground up.
For true cut-through in a development cohort, any upskilling must go beyond theory, and be implemented in a way that doesn’t result in constant context-switching between work and training to find answers and stay agile. Meticulous security practices (not to mention the security team) are seen as blockers to on-time development sprints, and seriously cramp the style of the average feature-focused engineer.
Short, snackable micro-learnings that are custom-fit to developer needs get a far less frosty reception, and result in memorable, practical skill-building.
Take a look at how we’ve structured this for our NIST course:
Objective 1: Protect EO-critical software and EO-critical software platforms from unauthorized access and usage.
Security misconfiguration and improper authentication practices are relied upon by attackers to successfully infiltrate systems, take over accounts, and steal data. They are a common bug that can lead to huge problems if successfully exploited.
On the Secure Code Warrior Learning Platform, developers can play challenges based on real-world code snippets that accurately reflect how these bugs would appear in their everyday work, and get them to find an accurate solution to secure them. For the DevOps engineers, securing infrastructure requires meticulous access control configurations, and there are specialized challenges to meet this requirement in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) languages like Terraform, CloudFormation, and Ansible, as well as the code used in Docker and Kubernetes.
Objective 2: Protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data used by EO-critical software and EO-critical software platforms.
For this objective, all roads lead to access control. Broken access control recently dethroned injection flaws as the top entry in the OWASP Top 10 2021, and it’s a serious bug that requires the skills of security-aware developers to find and fix as early as possible.
The course deals with concepts like least privilege at the code level, and helps instill the approach of limiting access on user accounts to only the necessary areas as best practice.
Objective 3: Identify and maintain EO-critical software platforms and the software deployed to those platforms to protect the EO-critical software from exploitation.
One of the biggest challenges in large organizations is maintaining security oversight on all the different software, systems, and components currently in play. When it comes to risk management and patching, these elements must be a priority in any security program, with developers on high alert to perform security maintenance.
On the Secure Code Warrior Learning Platform, developers can play challenges that will help them identify and fix vulnerable components, as well as permissions-based security misconfiguration.
Objective 4: Quickly detect, respond to, and recover from threats and incidents involving EO-critical software and EO-critical software platforms.
It’s unfortunate (and a waste of time and money) that many organizations still focus on incident response - as opposed to prevention - when dealing with cybersecurity issues. This is a culture that we’re fighting to change, and developers are at the helm of providing preventative firepower when properly trained in security best practices.
Objective 4 requires developers, in the context of their role, to continuously monitor security in their environments, and endpoints both at the software and network level. Insufficient logging and monitoring is another common, insidious bug, and it’s vital that engineers are able to successfully navigate this in their everyday tasks.
On the Secure Code Warrior Learning Platform, developers can play challenges to hone these skills, whether working with web, API, or cloud languages.
Security awareness with sustainability.
Objective 5: Strengthen the understanding and performance of humans’ actions that foster the security of EO-critical software and EO-critical software platforms.
This one is quite generalized, but it’s the most important to achieve… and you can’t do it without mastering the first four objectives. This guideline asks that frequent security awareness activities are carried out, and that all “human actions” on EO-critical software are carried out by those who are adequately trained in the context of their roles and responsibilities.
Developers are among those who are most up close and personal with code, in addition to security configurations and access control. Their security skills must be nurtured, and to achieve the high standards as outlined by NIST, a hands-on course structure might just be the efficient way to tackle it, especially with large development cohorts.
Start adding to your development team’s experience points and security IQ today.
Developers are among those who are most up close and personal with code, in addition to security configurations and access control. Their security skills must be nurtured, and to achieve the high standards as outlined by NIST, a hands-on course structure might just be the efficient way to tackle it, especially with large development cohorts.
Matias Madou, Ph.D. is a security expert, researcher, and CTO and co-founder of Secure Code Warrior. Matias obtained his Ph.D. in Application Security from Ghent University, focusing on static analysis solutions. He later joined Fortify in the US, where he realized that it was insufficient to solely detect code problems without aiding developers in writing secure code. This inspired him to develop products that assist developers, alleviate the burden of security, and exceed customers' expectations. When he is not at his desk as part of Team Awesome, he enjoys being on stage presenting at conferences including RSA Conference, BlackHat and DefCon.
Secure Code Warrior is here for your organization to help you secure code across the entire software development lifecycle and create a culture in which cybersecurity is top of mind. Whether you’re an AppSec Manager, Developer, CISO, or anyone involved in security, we can help your organization reduce risks associated with insecure code.
Book a demo
Matias Madou, Ph.D. is a security expert, researcher, and CTO and co-founder of Secure Code Warrior. Matias obtained his Ph.D. in Application Security from Ghent University, focusing on static analysis solutions. He later joined Fortify in the US, where he realized that it was insufficient to solely detect code problems without aiding developers in writing secure code. This inspired him to develop products that assist developers, alleviate the burden of security, and exceed customers' expectations. When he is not at his desk as part of Team Awesome, he enjoys being on stage presenting at conferences including RSA Conference, BlackHat and DefCon.
Matias is a researcher and developer with more than 15 years of hands-on software security experience. He has developed solutions for companies such as Fortify Software and his own company Sensei Security. Over his career, Matias has led multiple application security research projects which have led to commercial products and boasts over 10 patents under his belt. When he is away from his desk, Matias has served as an instructor for advanced application security training courses and regularly speaks at global conferences including RSA Conference, Black Hat, DefCon, BSIMM, OWASP AppSec and BruCon.
Matias holds a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Ghent University, where he studied application security through program obfuscation to hide the inner workings of an application.
There have been some very welcome movements in the cybersecurity industry of late. It seems that sentiment around prioritizing security in software builds, as early as possible, is starting to improve in many organizations. This, coupled with official measures like Biden’s Executive Order on cybersecurity, has made it abundantly clear that everyone needs to be doing their part to ensure software security and data safety. What is especially exciting is that the conversation around the role of the developer in maintaining secure coding standards continues to evolve, even at the government level.
However, there is something missing from the conversation. The Executive Order suggests that developers need verified security skills, yet no such official certification currently exists. Many companies remain guided by NIST (who provided updated guidelines in response to the EO) in their quest for compliance and higher standards of software security, but if we’re thinking of strategies to significantly reduce vulnerabilities, while incorporating the right tools and maintaining release velocity, most are simply too generic to create the desired outcome. This is where a lot of companies become unstuck, persevering with limited developer training, or not building upon general foundations to enable them with practical, hands-on skills.
Security-aware developers do not grow on trees, but they can be nurtured and elevated much quicker with the right tools. To that end, we’re pleased to announce our own proprietary course for NIST compliance, as structured by the guidelines of the US Government’s Executive Order.
Meaningful, code-level support for developers
Using the NIST guidelines for Executive Order-critical (EO-critical) software here, we structured the course to hit the five key objectives that will, ultimately, improve the security of vital software in use at the highest levels of government, and should ideally act as a benchmark for higher quality development from the ground up.
For true cut-through in a development cohort, any upskilling must go beyond theory, and be implemented in a way that doesn’t result in constant context-switching between work and training to find answers and stay agile. Meticulous security practices (not to mention the security team) are seen as blockers to on-time development sprints, and seriously cramp the style of the average feature-focused engineer.
Short, snackable micro-learnings that are custom-fit to developer needs get a far less frosty reception, and result in memorable, practical skill-building.
Take a look at how we’ve structured this for our NIST course:
Objective 1: Protect EO-critical software and EO-critical software platforms from unauthorized access and usage.
Security misconfiguration and improper authentication practices are relied upon by attackers to successfully infiltrate systems, take over accounts, and steal data. They are a common bug that can lead to huge problems if successfully exploited.
On the Secure Code Warrior Learning Platform, developers can play challenges based on real-world code snippets that accurately reflect how these bugs would appear in their everyday work, and get them to find an accurate solution to secure them. For the DevOps engineers, securing infrastructure requires meticulous access control configurations, and there are specialized challenges to meet this requirement in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) languages like Terraform, CloudFormation, and Ansible, as well as the code used in Docker and Kubernetes.
Objective 2: Protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data used by EO-critical software and EO-critical software platforms.
For this objective, all roads lead to access control. Broken access control recently dethroned injection flaws as the top entry in the OWASP Top 10 2021, and it’s a serious bug that requires the skills of security-aware developers to find and fix as early as possible.
The course deals with concepts like least privilege at the code level, and helps instill the approach of limiting access on user accounts to only the necessary areas as best practice.
Objective 3: Identify and maintain EO-critical software platforms and the software deployed to those platforms to protect the EO-critical software from exploitation.
One of the biggest challenges in large organizations is maintaining security oversight on all the different software, systems, and components currently in play. When it comes to risk management and patching, these elements must be a priority in any security program, with developers on high alert to perform security maintenance.
On the Secure Code Warrior Learning Platform, developers can play challenges that will help them identify and fix vulnerable components, as well as permissions-based security misconfiguration.
Objective 4: Quickly detect, respond to, and recover from threats and incidents involving EO-critical software and EO-critical software platforms.
It’s unfortunate (and a waste of time and money) that many organizations still focus on incident response - as opposed to prevention - when dealing with cybersecurity issues. This is a culture that we’re fighting to change, and developers are at the helm of providing preventative firepower when properly trained in security best practices.
Objective 4 requires developers, in the context of their role, to continuously monitor security in their environments, and endpoints both at the software and network level. Insufficient logging and monitoring is another common, insidious bug, and it’s vital that engineers are able to successfully navigate this in their everyday tasks.
On the Secure Code Warrior Learning Platform, developers can play challenges to hone these skills, whether working with web, API, or cloud languages.
Security awareness with sustainability.
Objective 5: Strengthen the understanding and performance of humans’ actions that foster the security of EO-critical software and EO-critical software platforms.
This one is quite generalized, but it’s the most important to achieve… and you can’t do it without mastering the first four objectives. This guideline asks that frequent security awareness activities are carried out, and that all “human actions” on EO-critical software are carried out by those who are adequately trained in the context of their roles and responsibilities.
Developers are among those who are most up close and personal with code, in addition to security configurations and access control. Their security skills must be nurtured, and to achieve the high standards as outlined by NIST, a hands-on course structure might just be the efficient way to tackle it, especially with large development cohorts.
Start adding to your development team’s experience points and security IQ today.
There have been some very welcome movements in the cybersecurity industry of late. It seems that sentiment around prioritizing security in software builds, as early as possible, is starting to improve in many organizations. This, coupled with official measures like Biden’s Executive Order on cybersecurity, has made it abundantly clear that everyone needs to be doing their part to ensure software security and data safety. What is especially exciting is that the conversation around the role of the developer in maintaining secure coding standards continues to evolve, even at the government level.
However, there is something missing from the conversation. The Executive Order suggests that developers need verified security skills, yet no such official certification currently exists. Many companies remain guided by NIST (who provided updated guidelines in response to the EO) in their quest for compliance and higher standards of software security, but if we’re thinking of strategies to significantly reduce vulnerabilities, while incorporating the right tools and maintaining release velocity, most are simply too generic to create the desired outcome. This is where a lot of companies become unstuck, persevering with limited developer training, or not building upon general foundations to enable them with practical, hands-on skills.
Security-aware developers do not grow on trees, but they can be nurtured and elevated much quicker with the right tools. To that end, we’re pleased to announce our own proprietary course for NIST compliance, as structured by the guidelines of the US Government’s Executive Order.
Meaningful, code-level support for developers
Using the NIST guidelines for Executive Order-critical (EO-critical) software here, we structured the course to hit the five key objectives that will, ultimately, improve the security of vital software in use at the highest levels of government, and should ideally act as a benchmark for higher quality development from the ground up.
For true cut-through in a development cohort, any upskilling must go beyond theory, and be implemented in a way that doesn’t result in constant context-switching between work and training to find answers and stay agile. Meticulous security practices (not to mention the security team) are seen as blockers to on-time development sprints, and seriously cramp the style of the average feature-focused engineer.
Short, snackable micro-learnings that are custom-fit to developer needs get a far less frosty reception, and result in memorable, practical skill-building.
Take a look at how we’ve structured this for our NIST course:
Objective 1: Protect EO-critical software and EO-critical software platforms from unauthorized access and usage.
Security misconfiguration and improper authentication practices are relied upon by attackers to successfully infiltrate systems, take over accounts, and steal data. They are a common bug that can lead to huge problems if successfully exploited.
On the Secure Code Warrior Learning Platform, developers can play challenges based on real-world code snippets that accurately reflect how these bugs would appear in their everyday work, and get them to find an accurate solution to secure them. For the DevOps engineers, securing infrastructure requires meticulous access control configurations, and there are specialized challenges to meet this requirement in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) languages like Terraform, CloudFormation, and Ansible, as well as the code used in Docker and Kubernetes.
Objective 2: Protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data used by EO-critical software and EO-critical software platforms.
For this objective, all roads lead to access control. Broken access control recently dethroned injection flaws as the top entry in the OWASP Top 10 2021, and it’s a serious bug that requires the skills of security-aware developers to find and fix as early as possible.
The course deals with concepts like least privilege at the code level, and helps instill the approach of limiting access on user accounts to only the necessary areas as best practice.
Objective 3: Identify and maintain EO-critical software platforms and the software deployed to those platforms to protect the EO-critical software from exploitation.
One of the biggest challenges in large organizations is maintaining security oversight on all the different software, systems, and components currently in play. When it comes to risk management and patching, these elements must be a priority in any security program, with developers on high alert to perform security maintenance.
On the Secure Code Warrior Learning Platform, developers can play challenges that will help them identify and fix vulnerable components, as well as permissions-based security misconfiguration.
Objective 4: Quickly detect, respond to, and recover from threats and incidents involving EO-critical software and EO-critical software platforms.
It’s unfortunate (and a waste of time and money) that many organizations still focus on incident response - as opposed to prevention - when dealing with cybersecurity issues. This is a culture that we’re fighting to change, and developers are at the helm of providing preventative firepower when properly trained in security best practices.
Objective 4 requires developers, in the context of their role, to continuously monitor security in their environments, and endpoints both at the software and network level. Insufficient logging and monitoring is another common, insidious bug, and it’s vital that engineers are able to successfully navigate this in their everyday tasks.
On the Secure Code Warrior Learning Platform, developers can play challenges to hone these skills, whether working with web, API, or cloud languages.
Security awareness with sustainability.
Objective 5: Strengthen the understanding and performance of humans’ actions that foster the security of EO-critical software and EO-critical software platforms.
This one is quite generalized, but it’s the most important to achieve… and you can’t do it without mastering the first four objectives. This guideline asks that frequent security awareness activities are carried out, and that all “human actions” on EO-critical software are carried out by those who are adequately trained in the context of their roles and responsibilities.
Developers are among those who are most up close and personal with code, in addition to security configurations and access control. Their security skills must be nurtured, and to achieve the high standards as outlined by NIST, a hands-on course structure might just be the efficient way to tackle it, especially with large development cohorts.
Start adding to your development team’s experience points and security IQ today.
Click on the link below and download the PDF of this resource.
Secure Code Warrior is here for your organization to help you secure code across the entire software development lifecycle and create a culture in which cybersecurity is top of mind. Whether you’re an AppSec Manager, Developer, CISO, or anyone involved in security, we can help your organization reduce risks associated with insecure code.
View reportBook a demo
Matias Madou, Ph.D. is a security expert, researcher, and CTO and co-founder of Secure Code Warrior. Matias obtained his Ph.D. in Application Security from Ghent University, focusing on static analysis solutions. He later joined Fortify in the US, where he realized that it was insufficient to solely detect code problems without aiding developers in writing secure code. This inspired him to develop products that assist developers, alleviate the burden of security, and exceed customers' expectations. When he is not at his desk as part of Team Awesome, he enjoys being on stage presenting at conferences including RSA Conference, BlackHat and DefCon.
Matias is a researcher and developer with more than 15 years of hands-on software security experience. He has developed solutions for companies such as Fortify Software and his own company Sensei Security. Over his career, Matias has led multiple application security research projects which have led to commercial products and boasts over 10 patents under his belt. When he is away from his desk, Matias has served as an instructor for advanced application security training courses and regularly speaks at global conferences including RSA Conference, Black Hat, DefCon, BSIMM, OWASP AppSec and BruCon.
Matias holds a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Ghent University, where he studied application security through program obfuscation to hide the inner workings of an application.
There have been some very welcome movements in the cybersecurity industry of late. It seems that sentiment around prioritizing security in software builds, as early as possible, is starting to improve in many organizations. This, coupled with official measures like Biden’s Executive Order on cybersecurity, has made it abundantly clear that everyone needs to be doing their part to ensure software security and data safety. What is especially exciting is that the conversation around the role of the developer in maintaining secure coding standards continues to evolve, even at the government level.
However, there is something missing from the conversation. The Executive Order suggests that developers need verified security skills, yet no such official certification currently exists. Many companies remain guided by NIST (who provided updated guidelines in response to the EO) in their quest for compliance and higher standards of software security, but if we’re thinking of strategies to significantly reduce vulnerabilities, while incorporating the right tools and maintaining release velocity, most are simply too generic to create the desired outcome. This is where a lot of companies become unstuck, persevering with limited developer training, or not building upon general foundations to enable them with practical, hands-on skills.
Security-aware developers do not grow on trees, but they can be nurtured and elevated much quicker with the right tools. To that end, we’re pleased to announce our own proprietary course for NIST compliance, as structured by the guidelines of the US Government’s Executive Order.
Meaningful, code-level support for developers
Using the NIST guidelines for Executive Order-critical (EO-critical) software here, we structured the course to hit the five key objectives that will, ultimately, improve the security of vital software in use at the highest levels of government, and should ideally act as a benchmark for higher quality development from the ground up.
For true cut-through in a development cohort, any upskilling must go beyond theory, and be implemented in a way that doesn’t result in constant context-switching between work and training to find answers and stay agile. Meticulous security practices (not to mention the security team) are seen as blockers to on-time development sprints, and seriously cramp the style of the average feature-focused engineer.
Short, snackable micro-learnings that are custom-fit to developer needs get a far less frosty reception, and result in memorable, practical skill-building.
Take a look at how we’ve structured this for our NIST course:
Objective 1: Protect EO-critical software and EO-critical software platforms from unauthorized access and usage.
Security misconfiguration and improper authentication practices are relied upon by attackers to successfully infiltrate systems, take over accounts, and steal data. They are a common bug that can lead to huge problems if successfully exploited.
On the Secure Code Warrior Learning Platform, developers can play challenges based on real-world code snippets that accurately reflect how these bugs would appear in their everyday work, and get them to find an accurate solution to secure them. For the DevOps engineers, securing infrastructure requires meticulous access control configurations, and there are specialized challenges to meet this requirement in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) languages like Terraform, CloudFormation, and Ansible, as well as the code used in Docker and Kubernetes.
Objective 2: Protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data used by EO-critical software and EO-critical software platforms.
For this objective, all roads lead to access control. Broken access control recently dethroned injection flaws as the top entry in the OWASP Top 10 2021, and it’s a serious bug that requires the skills of security-aware developers to find and fix as early as possible.
The course deals with concepts like least privilege at the code level, and helps instill the approach of limiting access on user accounts to only the necessary areas as best practice.
Objective 3: Identify and maintain EO-critical software platforms and the software deployed to those platforms to protect the EO-critical software from exploitation.
One of the biggest challenges in large organizations is maintaining security oversight on all the different software, systems, and components currently in play. When it comes to risk management and patching, these elements must be a priority in any security program, with developers on high alert to perform security maintenance.
On the Secure Code Warrior Learning Platform, developers can play challenges that will help them identify and fix vulnerable components, as well as permissions-based security misconfiguration.
Objective 4: Quickly detect, respond to, and recover from threats and incidents involving EO-critical software and EO-critical software platforms.
It’s unfortunate (and a waste of time and money) that many organizations still focus on incident response - as opposed to prevention - when dealing with cybersecurity issues. This is a culture that we’re fighting to change, and developers are at the helm of providing preventative firepower when properly trained in security best practices.
Objective 4 requires developers, in the context of their role, to continuously monitor security in their environments, and endpoints both at the software and network level. Insufficient logging and monitoring is another common, insidious bug, and it’s vital that engineers are able to successfully navigate this in their everyday tasks.
On the Secure Code Warrior Learning Platform, developers can play challenges to hone these skills, whether working with web, API, or cloud languages.
Security awareness with sustainability.
Objective 5: Strengthen the understanding and performance of humans’ actions that foster the security of EO-critical software and EO-critical software platforms.
This one is quite generalized, but it’s the most important to achieve… and you can’t do it without mastering the first four objectives. This guideline asks that frequent security awareness activities are carried out, and that all “human actions” on EO-critical software are carried out by those who are adequately trained in the context of their roles and responsibilities.
Developers are among those who are most up close and personal with code, in addition to security configurations and access control. Their security skills must be nurtured, and to achieve the high standards as outlined by NIST, a hands-on course structure might just be the efficient way to tackle it, especially with large development cohorts.
Start adding to your development team’s experience points and security IQ today.
Table of contents
Matias Madou, Ph.D. is a security expert, researcher, and CTO and co-founder of Secure Code Warrior. Matias obtained his Ph.D. in Application Security from Ghent University, focusing on static analysis solutions. He later joined Fortify in the US, where he realized that it was insufficient to solely detect code problems without aiding developers in writing secure code. This inspired him to develop products that assist developers, alleviate the burden of security, and exceed customers' expectations. When he is not at his desk as part of Team Awesome, he enjoys being on stage presenting at conferences including RSA Conference, BlackHat and DefCon.
Secure Code Warrior is here for your organization to help you secure code across the entire software development lifecycle and create a culture in which cybersecurity is top of mind. Whether you’re an AppSec Manager, Developer, CISO, or anyone involved in security, we can help your organization reduce risks associated with insecure code.
Book a demoDownloadResources to get you started
Resources to get you started
10 Key Predictions: Secure Code Warrior on AI & Secure-by-Design’s Influence in 2025
Organizations are facing tough decisions on AI usage to support long-term productivity, sustainability, and security ROI. It’s become clear to us over the last few years that AI will never fully replace the role of the developer. From AI + developer partnerships to the increasing pressures (and confusion) around Secure-by-Design expectations, let’s take a closer look at what we can expect over the next year.
OWASP Top 10 For LLM Applications: What’s New, Changed, and How to Stay Secure
Stay ahead in securing LLM applications with the latest OWASP Top 10 updates. Discover what's new, what’s changed, and how Secure Code Warrior equips you with up-to-date learning resources to mitigate risks in Generative AI.
Trust Score Reveals the Value of Secure-by-Design Upskilling Initiatives
Our research has shown that secure code training works. Trust Score, using an algorithm drawing on more than 20 million learning data points from work by more than 250,000 learners at over 600 organizations, reveals its effectiveness in driving down vulnerabilities and how to make the initiative even more effective.
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Reactive Versus Preventive Security: Prevention Is a Better Cure
The idea of bringing preventive security to legacy code and systems at the same time as newer applications can seem daunting, but a Secure-by-Design approach, enforced by upskilling developers, can apply security best practices to those systems. It’s the best chance many organizations have of improving their security postures.
Developer-driven coding.
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Contact us today and make software security an intrinsic part of your development process.
