Principles of Secure Coding

UC Davis starts secure programming with design principles and the relationship between robustness and security. Worked programming examples show how ordinary coding problems can create security weaknesses. It suits programmers who want to reason about failure and assumptions, rather than begin with a catalog of attack tools or isolated vulnerability names.

What you will learn

• Explain secure-programming design principles.
• Connect robust behavior with security requirements.
• Review code assumptions and common failure modes.

Who this suits

Intermediate programmers with one to two years of experience in a language such as C, C++ or Java, as recommended by the provider.

Before you enroll

Practice in a course lab or an application you are authorized to test, using fictional accounts and sample data. Security tools and framework defaults change, so compare examples with current documentation. A passing exercise or AI-generated suggestion does not establish that an application is secure; explain the threat, the control and how you verified its behavior.

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Put it into practice

Review a small fictional input-handling function. State its assumptions, propose boundary cases and explain how you would verify that an error produces a controlled result.

Source and review

This overview is based on the provider's published information, checked on 12 October 2026. It is an editorial assessment, not a claim that we completed the resource. Time filters are approximate study ranges; projects and exercises can take longer.

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