Warrior Insider: Nelnet - Nurture your security champions and create a culture of secure development from within
Micha Martinez is a Cybersecurity Analyst and Cinematographer at Nelnet, a US conglomerate that deals in the administration and repayment of student loans and education financial services. When he was tasked with creating a training program for developers around secure coding, he took on creative ways to engage his team. We were so impressed with how he runs his secure code training program that we sat down with him to learn more.
The bottom line?
Create a culture of security and nurture your internal security champions from within your development teams “to be the force of good.”
“By focusing on secure code, we’ve helped make the company stronger and safer.”
At Nelnet, Micha and his security team understood the importance of building secure code from the start. They wanted to achieve this in an engaging, relevant, and rewarding way. He discovered that by identifying developers with a strong interest and proficiency in secure coding and nurturing them to become security champions, those champions became the catalyst for changing the mindset around security training as a whole. These individuals mentor their colleagues who need more help at a peer-to-peer level, and become the leaders in implementing changes in secure code practices within the organization.
Here’s more from Micha about how he and his team shifted the mindset and culture around security prevention, which made their company “stronger and safer”.
It’s all about the bragging rights… and reducing vulnerabilities
Micha doesn’t run your average security training program. He uses competition and his cinematography talents to make tournaments hugely engaging and successful. What developers gain is highly relevant, practical knowledge that leads to stronger secure code.
The business wins too as their products become more secure and provide a higher level of protection against software vulnerabilities. Learning software security doesn’t have to be a typical and boring learning experience that does little more than check a box. Developers want training experiences that are immersive and challenging, as well as relevant to their daily work.
Watch Micha talk about how he makes secure coding training fun through tournaments including physical championship belts a la wrestle mania as the prize. All it takes is a little healthy competition to keep security top of mind for his team.
Who doesn’t love some bragging rights?
Embrace a culture centered around secure coding... the tool is not enough
Micha left us with one last thought about why he recommends Secure Code Warrior. The platform was the vehicle that led him to create a preventative culture and proactive learning. It took time to build the training program and also invest in the developers who train and perform well. It takes a transformative culture to build the skills in each developer to adopt a preventative approach to coding securely.
Here more from Micha about why embracing a culture of secure coding makes all the difference with Secure Code Warrior.
Secure Code Warrior delivers an immersive and engaging secure coding learning platform for developers. Interested in a demo? Book one below.
Micha Martinez is a Cybersecurity Analyst and Cinematographer at Nelnet. When tasked with creating a training program for developers around secure coding, he took on creative ways to engage his team. We were so impressed with how he runs his secure code training program that we sat down with him to learn more.
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
Micha Martinez is a Cybersecurity Analyst and Cinematographer at Nelnet, a US conglomerate that deals in the administration and repayment of student loans and education financial services. When he was tasked with creating a training program for developers around secure coding, he took on creative ways to engage his team. We were so impressed with how he runs his secure code training program that we sat down with him to learn more.
The bottom line?
Create a culture of security and nurture your internal security champions from within your development teams “to be the force of good.”
“By focusing on secure code, we’ve helped make the company stronger and safer.”
At Nelnet, Micha and his security team understood the importance of building secure code from the start. They wanted to achieve this in an engaging, relevant, and rewarding way. He discovered that by identifying developers with a strong interest and proficiency in secure coding and nurturing them to become security champions, those champions became the catalyst for changing the mindset around security training as a whole. These individuals mentor their colleagues who need more help at a peer-to-peer level, and become the leaders in implementing changes in secure code practices within the organization.
Here’s more from Micha about how he and his team shifted the mindset and culture around security prevention, which made their company “stronger and safer”.
It’s all about the bragging rights… and reducing vulnerabilities
Micha doesn’t run your average security training program. He uses competition and his cinematography talents to make tournaments hugely engaging and successful. What developers gain is highly relevant, practical knowledge that leads to stronger secure code.
The business wins too as their products become more secure and provide a higher level of protection against software vulnerabilities. Learning software security doesn’t have to be a typical and boring learning experience that does little more than check a box. Developers want training experiences that are immersive and challenging, as well as relevant to their daily work.
Watch Micha talk about how he makes secure coding training fun through tournaments including physical championship belts a la wrestle mania as the prize. All it takes is a little healthy competition to keep security top of mind for his team.
Who doesn’t love some bragging rights?
Embrace a culture centered around secure coding... the tool is not enough
Micha left us with one last thought about why he recommends Secure Code Warrior. The platform was the vehicle that led him to create a preventative culture and proactive learning. It took time to build the training program and also invest in the developers who train and perform well. It takes a transformative culture to build the skills in each developer to adopt a preventative approach to coding securely.
Here more from Micha about why embracing a culture of secure coding makes all the difference with Secure Code Warrior.
Secure Code Warrior delivers an immersive and engaging secure coding learning platform for developers. Interested in a demo? Book one below.
Micha Martinez is a Cybersecurity Analyst and Cinematographer at Nelnet, a US conglomerate that deals in the administration and repayment of student loans and education financial services. When he was tasked with creating a training program for developers around secure coding, he took on creative ways to engage his team. We were so impressed with how he runs his secure code training program that we sat down with him to learn more.
The bottom line?
Create a culture of security and nurture your internal security champions from within your development teams “to be the force of good.”
“By focusing on secure code, we’ve helped make the company stronger and safer.”
At Nelnet, Micha and his security team understood the importance of building secure code from the start. They wanted to achieve this in an engaging, relevant, and rewarding way. He discovered that by identifying developers with a strong interest and proficiency in secure coding and nurturing them to become security champions, those champions became the catalyst for changing the mindset around security training as a whole. These individuals mentor their colleagues who need more help at a peer-to-peer level, and become the leaders in implementing changes in secure code practices within the organization.
Here’s more from Micha about how he and his team shifted the mindset and culture around security prevention, which made their company “stronger and safer”.
It’s all about the bragging rights… and reducing vulnerabilities
Micha doesn’t run your average security training program. He uses competition and his cinematography talents to make tournaments hugely engaging and successful. What developers gain is highly relevant, practical knowledge that leads to stronger secure code.
The business wins too as their products become more secure and provide a higher level of protection against software vulnerabilities. Learning software security doesn’t have to be a typical and boring learning experience that does little more than check a box. Developers want training experiences that are immersive and challenging, as well as relevant to their daily work.
Watch Micha talk about how he makes secure coding training fun through tournaments including physical championship belts a la wrestle mania as the prize. All it takes is a little healthy competition to keep security top of mind for his team.
Who doesn’t love some bragging rights?
Embrace a culture centered around secure coding... the tool is not enough
Micha left us with one last thought about why he recommends Secure Code Warrior. The platform was the vehicle that led him to create a preventative culture and proactive learning. It took time to build the training program and also invest in the developers who train and perform well. It takes a transformative culture to build the skills in each developer to adopt a preventative approach to coding securely.
Here more from Micha about why embracing a culture of secure coding makes all the difference with Secure Code Warrior.
Secure Code Warrior delivers an immersive and engaging secure coding learning platform for developers. Interested in a demo? Book one below.
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
Micha Martinez is a Cybersecurity Analyst and Cinematographer at Nelnet, a US conglomerate that deals in the administration and repayment of student loans and education financial services. When he was tasked with creating a training program for developers around secure coding, he took on creative ways to engage his team. We were so impressed with how he runs his secure code training program that we sat down with him to learn more.
The bottom line?
Create a culture of security and nurture your internal security champions from within your development teams “to be the force of good.”
“By focusing on secure code, we’ve helped make the company stronger and safer.”
At Nelnet, Micha and his security team understood the importance of building secure code from the start. They wanted to achieve this in an engaging, relevant, and rewarding way. He discovered that by identifying developers with a strong interest and proficiency in secure coding and nurturing them to become security champions, those champions became the catalyst for changing the mindset around security training as a whole. These individuals mentor their colleagues who need more help at a peer-to-peer level, and become the leaders in implementing changes in secure code practices within the organization.
Here’s more from Micha about how he and his team shifted the mindset and culture around security prevention, which made their company “stronger and safer”.
It’s all about the bragging rights… and reducing vulnerabilities
Micha doesn’t run your average security training program. He uses competition and his cinematography talents to make tournaments hugely engaging and successful. What developers gain is highly relevant, practical knowledge that leads to stronger secure code.
The business wins too as their products become more secure and provide a higher level of protection against software vulnerabilities. Learning software security doesn’t have to be a typical and boring learning experience that does little more than check a box. Developers want training experiences that are immersive and challenging, as well as relevant to their daily work.
Watch Micha talk about how he makes secure coding training fun through tournaments including physical championship belts a la wrestle mania as the prize. All it takes is a little healthy competition to keep security top of mind for his team.
Who doesn’t love some bragging rights?
Embrace a culture centered around secure coding... the tool is not enough
Micha left us with one last thought about why he recommends Secure Code Warrior. The platform was the vehicle that led him to create a preventative culture and proactive learning. It took time to build the training program and also invest in the developers who train and perform well. It takes a transformative culture to build the skills in each developer to adopt a preventative approach to coding securely.
Here more from Micha about why embracing a culture of secure coding makes all the difference with Secure Code Warrior.
Secure Code Warrior delivers an immersive and engaging secure coding learning platform for developers. Interested in a demo? Book one below.
Table of contents
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
Benchmarking Security Skills: Streamlining Secure-by-Design in the Enterprise
Finding meaningful data on the success of Secure-by-Design initiatives is notoriously difficult. CISOs are often challenged when attempting to prove the return on investment (ROI) and business value of security program activities at both the people and company levels. Not to mention, it’s particularly difficult for enterprises to gain insights into how their organizations are benchmarked against current industry standards. The President’s National Cybersecurity Strategy challenged stakeholders to “embrace security and resilience by design.” The key to making Secure-by-Design initiatives work is not only giving developers the skills to ensure secure code, but also assuring the regulators that those skills are in place. In this presentation, we share a myriad of qualitative and quantitative data, derived from multiple primary sources, including internal data points collected from over 250,000 developers, data-driven customer insights, and public studies. Leveraging this aggregation of data points, we aim to communicate a vision of the current state of Secure-by-Design initiatives across multiple verticals. The report details why this space is currently underutilized, the significant impact a successful upskilling program can have on cybersecurity risk mitigation, and the potential to eliminate categories of vulnerabilities from a codebase.
Secure code training topics & content
Our industry-leading content is always evolving to fit the ever changing software development landscape with your role in mind. Topics covering everything from AI to XQuery Injection, offered for a variety of roles from Architects and Engineers to Product Managers and QA. Get a sneak peak of what our content catalog has to offer by topic and role.
Quests: Industry leading learning to keep developers ahead of the game mitigating risk.
Quests is a learning platform that helps developers mitigate software security risks by enhancing their secure coding skills. With curated learning paths, hands-on challenges, and interactive activities, it empowers developers to identify and prevent vulnerabilities.
Resources to get you started
Is Vibe Coding Going to Turn Your Codebase Into a Frat Party?
Vibe coding is like a college frat party, and AI is the centerpiece of all the festivities, the keg. It’s a lot of fun to let loose, get creative, and see where your imagination can take you, but after a few keg stands, drinking (or, using AI) in moderation is undoubtedly the safer long-term solution.
The Decade of the Defenders: Secure Code Warrior Turns Ten
Secure Code Warrior's founding team has stayed together, steering the ship through every lesson, triumph, and setback for an entire decade. We’re scaling up and ready to face our next chapter, SCW 2.0, as the leaders in developer risk management.
Developer-driven coding.
Securely.
Contact us today and make software security an intrinsic part of your development process.
