Building secure software requires more than just writing functional code—it demands a security-first mindset at every step of development. In this topic, you’ll dive into the principles and practices that strengthen software resilience, reduce vulnerabilities, and safeguard user data. You’ll explore essential techniques for secure coding, from implementing effective access controls and hardening APIs, to ensuring robust web application security. Real-world development scenarios will highlight how poor security decisions introduce risk—and how best practices can prevent them. By the end of this topic, you’ll understand how to weave security into your development practices, making it a natural and non-negotiable part of delivering trusted, high-integrity software.

In the fast-paced world of software delivery, security must be continuous, automated, and deeply integrated into the development pipeline. This topic focuses on the application-layer risks and protections within the DevSecOps workflow—ensuring vulnerabilities are caught early and often. You’ll explore how to implement continuous security, manage dependency integrity, and use static application analysis to detect weaknesses before code reaches production. The topic also examines the role of software repositories in maintaining trust and control across application components. By the end of this topic, you’ll understand how to shift security left—embedding it into every stage of application development to reduce risk and accelerate delivery.

Modern software delivery relies on fast, automated pipelines—but speed must not come at the cost of security. This topic explores how to embed robust security controls into CI/CD pipelines, ensuring that security is a continuous, automated part of your build and deployment process. You’ll examine how tools like static scanners and dynamic application security testing (DAST) can be integrated into development workflows, and how to secure infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) practices. Whether deploying to cloud or on-prem environments, you’ll learn how to protect the entire delivery pipeline from code to production. By the end of this topic, you’ll be equipped to design and operate secure, efficient DevSecOps pipelines that support rapid deployment without compromising on security.

As cloud-native architectures become the norm, securing deployments in the cloud is essential for any modern DevSecOps strategy. This topic focuses on implementing security controls in Azure-based environments, with a strong emphasis on containerised applications and service mesh architectures. You’ll explore how to secure containers with Docker, manage application orchestration using Kubernetes, and address key aspects of cloud network security. The topic also examines how DevSecOps principles apply to the unique challenges of cloud infrastructure and dynamic workloads. By the end of this topic, you'll understand how to build and operate secure, scalable, and resilient cloud environments using DevSecOps best practices in Azure.

Even with secure pipelines and best practices in place, cyber threats are constantly evolving. In this final topic, you’ll examine the landscape of threats and attack vectors targeting modern DevSecOps environments—including those emerging in machine learning (ML) and AI-driven systems. You’ll learn how to evaluate security risks across the software delivery lifecycle, understand how AI is being used within DevSecOps, and explore the growing field of MLSecOps—the practice of securing machine learning models in production. By the end of this topic, you’ll be equipped to anticipate, evaluate, and respond to complex threats—ensuring your DevSecOps practices evolve alongside the technologies and risks shaping the future of software security.