Why You Should Join EC-Council’s Certified DevSecOps Engineer (E|CDE) Course

As the field of DevSecOps grows in popularity, so too does the number of DevSecOps courses and certifications—not all of which are created equal. DevSecOps programs can differ significantly in cost, time commitment, curriculum, learning format, and more.

While the best DevSecOps course will depend on each learner, many students find their needs well matched with the EC-Council DevSecOps certification: E|CDE (Certified DevSecOps Engineer). Below, we’ll discuss the biggest reasons why the E|CDE program is one of the best DevSecOps courses in your journey to becoming a DevSecOps engineer.

E|CDE Program Highlights

The DevSecOps methodology has recently seen a surge of interest from businesses of all sizes and industries. Based on its predecessor DevOps, DevSecOps adds concerns about security to the software development and deployment lifecycle. With news of devastating data breaches and hacks constantly in the headlines, DevSecOps has become an effective strategy for organizations to counteract security vulnerabilities while rapidly building and delivering secure applications.

EC-Council Certified DevSecOps Engineer (E|CDE) is a hands-on, instructor-led, comprehensive DevSecOps certification program that gives IT professionals the essential skills to design, develop, and maintain secure applications and infrastructure.

The E|CDE program has been created by subject matter experts and experienced DevSecOps professionals worldwide to help learners master real-world DevSecOps concepts, tools, and methods with a comprehensive training module. Attaining the E|CDE certification verifies that students have obtained the necessary knowledge and skill set to become DevSecOps professionals.

Before starting the E|CDE certification, students should know that:

• E|CDE includes more than 80 practical, hands-on labs and seven theoretical modules. 
• The program teaches security topics and tools at all eight stages of the DevOps pipeline.
• E|CDE covers topics in both application and infrastructure DevSecOps, as well as both cloud-native environments and on-premises platforms.
• DevSecOps experts have created the E|CDE program to map the precise job roles and responsibilities of real-world DevSecOps engineers.

Who Is the E|CDE Course For?

The EC-Council DevSecOps program is for any students who want to begin a career as a DevSecOps engineer or to improve their career in the field (i.e., via promotions or raises). The E|CDE course is a good match for people such as:

• Application security professionals
• DevOps engineers
• Software engineers and testers
• IT security professionals
• Cybersecurity engineers and analysts

In general, any students who are interested in the field of DevSecOps, and who have a previous understanding of IT or application security concepts will be a good fit for the E|CDE program.

After obtaining the E|CDE certification, program graduates will be prepared for jobs such as:

• DevSecOps engineer
• Senior DevSecOps engineer
• Cloud DevSecOps engineer
• Azure DevSecOps engineer
• AWS DevSecOps engineer
• DevSecOps analyst
• DevSecOps specialist
• DevSecOps operations engineer
• DevSecOps systems administrator
• DevSecOps systems administrator
• DevSecOps consultant
• DevSecOps CI/CD engineer
• Infrastructure DevSecOps engineer

What Will the E|CDE Students Learn?

The EC-Council DevSecOps certification covers all the topics students need to become a DevSecOps engineer. Throughout the E|CDE program, students learn to use a wealth of DevOps and security tools and platforms that they need in their real-world work in the field of DevSecOps.

E|CDE is the most laboratory-intensive DevSecOps certification program, with over 80 guided hands-on labs delivered in a virtual online or offline format. This includes 32 labs focused on Amazon Web Services, 29 labs focused on Microsoft Azure, and 32 labs focused on on-premises environments. As such, graduates of the E|CDE program learn the essential skills needed to perform DevSecOps on-premises and in the cloud.

Below is just a sampling of the topics that E|CDE students will learn throughout the program:

• DevSecOps culture, philosophy, practices, and tools
• Security practices (security requirement gathering, threat modeling, secure code reviews, etc.)
• Automation tools and practices (Jenkins, Bamboo, TeamCity, Gradle)
• Threat modeling tools (Threat Dragon, ThreatModeler, Threatspec)
• Continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) tools such as Jenkins
• Application security testing tools (Snyk, SonarQube, StackHawk, Checkmarx SAST, Debricked, WhiteSource Bolt, etc.)
• Runtime application self-protection tools (Hdiv, Sqreen, Dynatrace, etc.)
• Automated security testing in AWS (Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon Elastic Container Registry, AWS CodeCommit, CodeBuild, CodePipeline, Lambda, Security Hub, etc.)
• Vulnerability scanning tools (Nessus, SonarCloud, Amazon Macie, Probely)
• Penetration testing tools (gitGraber, GitMiner)
• Infrastructure configuration tools (Ansible, Puppet, Chef)
• Logging, monitoring, and alerting tools (Sumo Logic, Datadog, Splunk, Azure Monitor, the ELK stack, Nagios, Opsgenie)
• Compliance-as-code tools (Cloud Custodian, the DevSec framework)

E|CDE Modules

The EC-Council DevSecOps program covers seven different modules:

• Module 1: Understanding DevOps Culture
• Module 2: Introduction to DevOps
• Module 3: DevSecOps Pipeline—Plan Stage
• Module 4: DevSecOps Pipeline—Code Stage
• Module 5: DevSecOps Pipeline—Build and Test Stage
• Module 6: DevSecOps Pipeline—Release and Deploy Stage
• Module 7: DevSecOps Pipeline—Operate and Monitor Stage

These modules correspond to the eight stages of the DevOps pipeline:

• Plan: The team defines the project goals; identifies the budget, timeline, and necessary resources; and constructs a roadmap to meet the project objectives.
• Code: Developers write software code and check it into a version control system (VCS), making it accessible to all team members. This stage also involves code reviews and analysis to ensure the software meets quality standards.
• Build: Developers compile and build the code into an executable file format, such as a binary or container image.
• Test: Testers and quality assurance (QA) professionals evaluate the software to verify that it meets the desired functionality and quality standards. This stage typically includes both automated and manual testing, as well as a variety of testing modalities (such as unit tests, integration tests, and performance tests).
• Release: The team deploys the tested software to a production-like environment. This stage also involves creating release notes, assigning version numbers, and changing management processes.
• Deploy: The team deploys the software to production. If the team is practicing continuous deployment (CD), the updated software is automatically deployed to production as soon as it passes the automated test suite.
• Operate: The IT operations team assesses the deployed application to ensure it is running as expected. This stage includes logging, monitoring, and alerting processes.
• Monitor: The operations team monitors the application’s performance, collecting data to improve future iterations of the software development life cycle. This stage includes processes such as performance testing, user feedback, and metrics analysis.

Source: eccouncil.org

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What is DevSecOps and How it works

By now, DevOps is a clear best practice for software development. According to a 2021 survey by Redgate Software, 74 percent of organizations have now adopted DevOps in some form (Redgate, 2021).

Within the broader practice of DevOps, the use of DevSecOps is also surging. Data Bridge Market Research estimates that the global DevSecOps market will expand from $2.59 billion in 2021 to $23.16 billion in 2029, with an annual growth rate of 31.5 percent (Data Bridge Market Research, 2022).

DevSecOps adds security concepts to the development and operations teams which form the foundation of DevOps. The primary purpose of DevSecOps is to make security a vital part of the software development process, considering security issues at each stage of the pipeline.

With DevSecOps a hot topic in IT and software development, it’s no surprise that many IT professionals are looking to move into the field. One of the best ways to become a DevSecOps engineer is by obtaining one of the various DevSecOps certifications. But with multiple options available, how can you choose the right DevSecOps course for you? This article will go over essential tips for selecting the best DevSecOps certification.

Tip #1: Understand Your DevSecOps Goals

The first question to ask when choosing the proper DevSecOps certification is: what are your goals when obtaining this certification? For many prospective students, the answer will be to obtain a job in the DevSecOps field or to facilitate their move from DevOps to DevSecOps. In this case, you should carefully examine the program’s curriculum to determine whether it has what you need for career success.

The best DevSecOps and DevOps certifications will offer a mix of theoretical knowledge and hands-on labs to help students gain real-world experience with DevOps tools and technologies. There are many DevOps platforms and solutions that practitioners should know about, including:

• Automation tools and practices
• Continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) tools
• Penetration testing software
• Compliance as code tools
• Threat modeling tools
• Vulnerability scanning tools
• Logging and monitoring software

At the same time, DevSecOps engineers need to have a solid theoretical underpinning of the field. This will help you not only put DevOps and DevSecOps concepts into practice but understand why they are necessary and how they help improve the software development life cycle.

For example, EC-Council’s Certified DevSecOps Engineer (E|CDE) program strikes a balance between theoretical and practical instruction with more than 80 hands-on labs and seven different modules covering the eight stages of the DevSecOps pipeline, from planning to operations and monitoring.

Tip #2: Find a Multi-Platform DevSecOps Course

DevOps and DevSecOps are both methodologies that are well-suited for cloud computing environments. This is for multiple reasons, including:

◉ Automation: DevSecOps heavily uses automation to improve speed, efficiency, and accuracy. This aligns well with public cloud environments, which provide many tools and services for automating infrastructure, applications, and resources.

◉ Security: DevSecOps adds security to the standard set of DevOps concerns, making it a priority at every stage of the software development life cycle. This makes it a good match for the cloud, where security is likewise critical to protect sensitive data and other assets.

◉ Collaboration: DevOps and DevSecOps aim to foster closer collaboration between the development, security, and operations teams within an organization. As such, they fit well in the cloud, which offers a common platform for these teams to communicate and share information about changes to the codebase.

Potential DevSecOps practitioners would do well to learn about cloud environments. This may include specializing in a particular public cloud provider, such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure. However, many organizations are still running DevOps either on-premises or in a hybrid setup that combines on-premises and cloud workloads.

For these reasons, DevSecOps courses should ideally be multi-platform. First, a vendor-agnostic approach will help students learn about general cloud computing principles, regardless of which cloud platform they work with. Second, your DevSecOps certification should address issues that pertain to both on-premises and the cloud. EC-Council’s E|CDE course, for example, covers DevSecOps topics in various environments: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and on-premises.

Tip #3: Review the DevSecOps Course Requirements and Schedule

Even the best DevSecOps course won’t be the right fit if it doesn’t align with your personal needs. When finalizing your choice of the proper DevSecOps certification, review the course’s requirements and schedule to ensure that you can complete it on time.

For example, many potential students are looking for a course they can take with a full-time job as they transition into the DevSecOps field. These students would do their best to find a DevSecOps course with an online or hybrid learning model and where the course lectures and assignments can be completed asynchronously (i.e., without fixed times or with flexible or loose deadlines).

EC-Council’s E|CDE course gives students multiple learning options, letting them choose the best fit for their situation. E|CDE students can choose from:

◉ Self-study: E|CDE is available in an asynchronous, self-study environment delivered online via streaming video.

◉ Live online: Motivated students can follow the E|CDE course in a synchronous online learning format, with live lectures by an instructor.

Why EC-Council’s E|CDE Course is the Best DevSecOps Certification

DevSecOps certifications are an excellent way to break into the field of DevSecOps or advance your career. When choosing from among the various DevSecOps courses, there are several criteria you can use to evaluate them. Some students are primarily concerned with the cost or return on investment, others are looking for a flexible program that they can accommodate with a full-time job, and still, others want certification with a rich curriculum that will best prepare them for a job as a DevSecOps engineer.

If you’re wondering which is the best DevSecOps course for you, consider EC-Council’s E|CDE program that teaches students the essential skills to design, develop, and maintain secure applications and infrastructure.

With more than 80 practical, hands-on labs and seven modules covering the entire DevSecOps pipeline, the E|CDE course prepares IT professionals for real-world DevSecOps challenges. The benefits of EC-Council’s E|CDE certification include the following:

◉ Designed by experts: E|CDE was built from the ground up by DevSecOps professionals and subject matter experts worldwide.

◉ Cloud and on-premises: E|CDE provides thorough coverage of on-premises environments and the Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure public clouds.

◉ Highly versatile toolkit: E|CDE teaches students about dozens of tools, services, and platforms they will use in their real-world work as DevSecOps engineers, from threat modeling and security testing to automation and CI/CD.

Source: eccouncil.org

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