Forge your fortress: Six essential pillars of developer enablement in software security
The concept of “shifting left” has been part of the cybersecurity industry discourse since the early 2000s. First rising to prominence as part of evolving Agile, followed by DevOps, development methodologies, the looming threat of large-scale cyberattacks necessitated a defense strategy as the world’s digital footprint grew.
Still, approaching twenty years after the “shift left” movement promised to revolutionize secure software delivery, we still face a deluge of insecure code, low levels of organizational security awareness, and subsequent cybercrime that escalates in volume and potency year-on-year. By 2025, it is estimated that cyberattacks will cost the world $10.5 trillion USD annually.
An ever-widening cybersecurity skills chasm has ensured we have been low on experienced security personnel for quite some time, and despite being a critical pain point for most security leaders and CISOs, we simply cannot afford to wait patiently for a miracle change in circumstance. The current approach is flawed, and we need to revitalize and utilize the resources we have right in front of us, and truly, relief is possible in the form of security-skilled developers.
In this white paper, security expert and Secure Code Warrior CTO & Co-Founder Matias Madou, Ph.D. will discuss:
- The six pillars you need to roll out effective security education and enablement for your development cohort.
- Lessons learned from ten executives implementing security programs at the enterprise level.
- Common pitfalls to avoid on your road to success.


In this white paper, security expert and Secure Code Warrior CTO & Co-Founder Matias Madou, Ph.D. will discuss:The six pillars you need to roll out effective security education and enablement for your development cohort. Lessons learned from ten executives implementing security programs at the enterprise level, and common pitfalls to avoid on your road to success.
Matias Madou, Ph.D. is a security expert, researcher, and CTO and co-founder of Secure Code Warrior. Matias obtained his Ph.D. in Application Security from Ghent University, focusing on static analysis solutions. He later joined Fortify in the US, where he realized that it was insufficient to solely detect code problems without aiding developers in writing secure code. This inspired him to develop products that assist developers, alleviate the burden of security, and exceed customers' expectations. When he is not at his desk as part of Team Awesome, he enjoys being on stage presenting at conferences including RSA Conference, BlackHat and DefCon.

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 demoMatias Madou, Ph.D. is a security expert, researcher, and CTO and co-founder of Secure Code Warrior. Matias obtained his Ph.D. in Application Security from Ghent University, focusing on static analysis solutions. He later joined Fortify in the US, where he realized that it was insufficient to solely detect code problems without aiding developers in writing secure code. This inspired him to develop products that assist developers, alleviate the burden of security, and exceed customers' expectations. When he is not at his desk as part of Team Awesome, he enjoys being on stage presenting at conferences including RSA Conference, BlackHat and DefCon.
Matias is a researcher and developer with more than 15 years of hands-on software security experience. He has developed solutions for companies such as Fortify Software and his own company Sensei Security. Over his career, Matias has led multiple application security research projects which have led to commercial products and boasts over 10 patents under his belt. When he is away from his desk, Matias has served as an instructor for advanced application security training courses and regularly speaks at global conferences including RSA Conference, Black Hat, DefCon, BSIMM, OWASP AppSec and BruCon.
Matias holds a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Ghent University, where he studied application security through program obfuscation to hide the inner workings of an application.


The concept of “shifting left” has been part of the cybersecurity industry discourse since the early 2000s. First rising to prominence as part of evolving Agile, followed by DevOps, development methodologies, the looming threat of large-scale cyberattacks necessitated a defense strategy as the world’s digital footprint grew.
Still, approaching twenty years after the “shift left” movement promised to revolutionize secure software delivery, we still face a deluge of insecure code, low levels of organizational security awareness, and subsequent cybercrime that escalates in volume and potency year-on-year. By 2025, it is estimated that cyberattacks will cost the world $10.5 trillion USD annually.
An ever-widening cybersecurity skills chasm has ensured we have been low on experienced security personnel for quite some time, and despite being a critical pain point for most security leaders and CISOs, we simply cannot afford to wait patiently for a miracle change in circumstance. The current approach is flawed, and we need to revitalize and utilize the resources we have right in front of us, and truly, relief is possible in the form of security-skilled developers.
In this white paper, security expert and Secure Code Warrior CTO & Co-Founder Matias Madou, Ph.D. will discuss:
- The six pillars you need to roll out effective security education and enablement for your development cohort.
- Lessons learned from ten executives implementing security programs at the enterprise level.
- Common pitfalls to avoid on your road to success.

The concept of “shifting left” has been part of the cybersecurity industry discourse since the early 2000s. First rising to prominence as part of evolving Agile, followed by DevOps, development methodologies, the looming threat of large-scale cyberattacks necessitated a defense strategy as the world’s digital footprint grew.
Still, approaching twenty years after the “shift left” movement promised to revolutionize secure software delivery, we still face a deluge of insecure code, low levels of organizational security awareness, and subsequent cybercrime that escalates in volume and potency year-on-year. By 2025, it is estimated that cyberattacks will cost the world $10.5 trillion USD annually.
An ever-widening cybersecurity skills chasm has ensured we have been low on experienced security personnel for quite some time, and despite being a critical pain point for most security leaders and CISOs, we simply cannot afford to wait patiently for a miracle change in circumstance. The current approach is flawed, and we need to revitalize and utilize the resources we have right in front of us, and truly, relief is possible in the form of security-skilled developers.
In this white paper, security expert and Secure Code Warrior CTO & Co-Founder Matias Madou, Ph.D. will discuss:
- The six pillars you need to roll out effective security education and enablement for your development cohort.
- Lessons learned from ten executives implementing security programs at the enterprise level.
- Common pitfalls to avoid on your road to success.

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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 demoMatias Madou, Ph.D. is a security expert, researcher, and CTO and co-founder of Secure Code Warrior. Matias obtained his Ph.D. in Application Security from Ghent University, focusing on static analysis solutions. He later joined Fortify in the US, where he realized that it was insufficient to solely detect code problems without aiding developers in writing secure code. This inspired him to develop products that assist developers, alleviate the burden of security, and exceed customers' expectations. When he is not at his desk as part of Team Awesome, he enjoys being on stage presenting at conferences including RSA Conference, BlackHat and DefCon.
Matias is a researcher and developer with more than 15 years of hands-on software security experience. He has developed solutions for companies such as Fortify Software and his own company Sensei Security. Over his career, Matias has led multiple application security research projects which have led to commercial products and boasts over 10 patents under his belt. When he is away from his desk, Matias has served as an instructor for advanced application security training courses and regularly speaks at global conferences including RSA Conference, Black Hat, DefCon, BSIMM, OWASP AppSec and BruCon.
Matias holds a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Ghent University, where he studied application security through program obfuscation to hide the inner workings of an application.
The concept of “shifting left” has been part of the cybersecurity industry discourse since the early 2000s. First rising to prominence as part of evolving Agile, followed by DevOps, development methodologies, the looming threat of large-scale cyberattacks necessitated a defense strategy as the world’s digital footprint grew.
Still, approaching twenty years after the “shift left” movement promised to revolutionize secure software delivery, we still face a deluge of insecure code, low levels of organizational security awareness, and subsequent cybercrime that escalates in volume and potency year-on-year. By 2025, it is estimated that cyberattacks will cost the world $10.5 trillion USD annually.
An ever-widening cybersecurity skills chasm has ensured we have been low on experienced security personnel for quite some time, and despite being a critical pain point for most security leaders and CISOs, we simply cannot afford to wait patiently for a miracle change in circumstance. The current approach is flawed, and we need to revitalize and utilize the resources we have right in front of us, and truly, relief is possible in the form of security-skilled developers.
In this white paper, security expert and Secure Code Warrior CTO & Co-Founder Matias Madou, Ph.D. will discuss:
- The six pillars you need to roll out effective security education and enablement for your development cohort.
- Lessons learned from ten executives implementing security programs at the enterprise level.
- Common pitfalls to avoid on your road to success.
Table of contents
Matias Madou, Ph.D. is a security expert, researcher, and CTO and co-founder of Secure Code Warrior. Matias obtained his Ph.D. in Application Security from Ghent University, focusing on static analysis solutions. He later joined Fortify in the US, where he realized that it was insufficient to solely detect code problems without aiding developers in writing secure code. This inspired him to develop products that assist developers, alleviate the burden of security, and exceed customers' expectations. When he is not at his desk as part of Team Awesome, he enjoys being on stage presenting at conferences including RSA Conference, BlackHat and DefCon.

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
Secure by Design: Defining Best Practices, Enabling Developers and Benchmarking Preventative Security Outcomes
In this research paper, Secure Code Warrior co-founders, Pieter Danhieux and Dr. Matias Madou, Ph.D., along with expert contributors, Chris Inglis, Former US National Cyber Director (now Strategic Advisor to Paladin Capital Group), and Devin Lynch, Senior Director, Paladin Global Institute, will reveal key findings from over twenty in-depth interviews with enterprise security leaders including CISOs, a VP of Application Security, and software security professionals.
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.
Resources to get you started
Revealed: How the Cyber Industry Defines Secure by Design
In our latest white paper, our Co-Founders, Pieter Danhieux and Dr. Matias Madou, Ph.D., sat down with over twenty enterprise security leaders, including CISOs, AppSec leaders and security professionals, to figure out the key pieces of this puzzle and uncover the reality behind the Secure by Design movement. It’s a shared ambition across the security teams, but no shared playbook.
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.