We’re excited to launch our newest SafeStack Academy course today: Security Foundations for Software Testing.
Whether it’s used to prevent crime, make applications less complex, or create safer and more secure products, the benefits of security testing far outweigh the time it takes to integrate it into your development lifecycle.
But we know it does take time — so this course is designed to make bringing security into your testing practice more achievable.
SafeStack Academy product owner Toni James shares her experience with software and security testing, along with some highlights from the course.
Software testing, security testing, and how they fit together
When I started my journey into software development, I had no idea software testing was a career path. I only found out software testing existed as a job title when I started my internship as a software engineer.
Ironically, most of the sprints we did during that internship focused on software testing and development improvements — otherwise known as bug fixing. As interns, we had the time and the capacity to take on a lot of the backlog bug issues that would help improve the product.
I was also amazed at the range of software testing titles and job descriptions, from technical testers through to business quality assurance testers. It opened my eyes to a whole new aspect of the software industry.
To be honest, if I’d known software testing was an option, I probably would have taken that route. Once I learned more about testing, it became my favourite part of the development process. I loved planning, creating test cases, following functional testing scenarios, and of course, my favourite part: exploratory testing, which I did a lot of as an intern.
Around the time I realised software testing was a thing, I also found out about software security. In my beginners mind, I thought everyone who worked in testing knew about security and everyone who worked in security knew about testing. I’ve since learned that’s definitely not the case.
What is security testing and why is it important?
A quick Google search for security testing will typically show you either penetration testing (just one form of security testing), or advertising for automated security testing tools. But there’s more to it than that.
Just like we do software testing to check software is working as expected, we do security testing to find out if the software can be misused or exploited to make it do something it shouldn’t. Examples of this could be giving you more data or access than you should have, or making systems unreliable or unavailable.
So how, as a tester, do you learn to build security into your regular routine? That’s a lot harder to find out about.
This is why we’re excited to launch our newest SafeStack Development Academy course, Security Foundations for Software Testing.
We understand your time is limited, and we want to make it as easy as possible to learn about security testing and bring it into your software development lifecycle with the time you do have.
About our Security Foundations for Software Testing course
In this course, we cover what security testing is and how to integrate it into every aspect of the software development lifecycle.
Covering a range of key areas, in this 1.5 hour course you’ll learn how to:
- Build a solid security testing foundation through concepts, terminologies, and ways of thinking that may be new to you.
- Understand the value of security testing and see where it can fit into the software development lifecycle.
- Review some common types of security testing, when they should take place, who should be involved, and what tools can help.
- Identify different challenges and strategies that you can use to create test cases to help you test functionality for security weaknesses.
- Identify techniques for actioning your test outcome, and working as a team to find solutions.
Who is this course for?
This course is for anyone who wants to build in security testing throughout their entire software development lifecycle.
It’s a foundational course to introduce the concepts and the information needed to perform manual security testing across any application.
Access this course by becoming a member of SafeStack Development Academy.
What you get with a SafeStack Academy membership
Our programme is flexible for all levels and team sizes, with no minimum seat requirements. You’ll get world-class training content designed by experts, and all at a budget-friendly price.
As well as our Security Foundations for Software Testing course, you’ll get access to our existing Security Fundamentals for Software Development, Finding and Fixing Web Application Security Vulnerabilities, and Threat Assessment for Software Development courses, plus new courses added quarterly.
You also get these neat benefits:
- Monthly online seminars hosted by the SafeStack Academy team on a range of application security topics, designed to connect you with a community of like-minded folks. Check out Level up your personal security for an idea of what to expect.
- Online office hours, offering a chance to talk with our team about what you’re learning or any particular secure development challenges you’re working through.
- Access to our hands-on labs, where you can explore concepts and test your knowledge.
- Digital badges to recognise and share what you’ve learned.
We love to hear from you
We hope this course will give you practical ways to build security testing into your practice, and we’d love to hear your feedback. Drop us a line on support@safestack.io and let us know what you think.
