Web Security: A Hands-on Approach (Udemy.com)
Browser security, cross-site request forgery, cross-site scripting, SQL injection, clickjacking attacks, countermeasures
Created by: Wenliang Du
Last updated August 2021
What you will learn
- Understand the common security problems in web applications
- Understand the security aspects of the web technologies
- Gain hands-on experiences from the labs (SEED Labs) developed by the instructor
- Learn web applications can be attached and how to defend against those attacks
Course Description
As the web has become more and more ubiquitous, the number of attacks on web applications have increased substantially. In this course, we systematically study the security problems in the web, including the security mechanisms implemented in the browse and server sides. We study several well-known attacks against web applications, such as cross-site request forgery, cross-site scripting, SQL injection, and clickjacking attacks. We also study how we can defend against these attacks when developing web applications.
The attacks are covered in this course with great technical details. The course won't just teach students the high-level concepts and theories. It would dive into the low-level technical details and fundamentals, so students can fully understand how exactly things work, and gain the knowledge in depth.
The course emphasizes hands-on learning. For each attack covered, students not only learn how the attack works in theory, they also learn how to actually conduct the attack, in a contained virtual machine and container environment. The hands-on exercises developed by the instructor are called SEED labs, and they are being used by over 1000 institutes worldwide. The course is based on the textbook written by the instructor. The book, titled "Computer & Internet Security: A Hands-on Approach, 2nd Edition", has been adopted by over 210 universities and colleges worldwide.
Instructor Details
- 4.8 Rating
416 Reviews
Wenliang Du
Dr. Wenliang (Kevin) Du, ACM Fellow and IEEE Fellow, is the Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor of Teaching Excellence at Syracuse University. He got his PhD degree from Purdue University. He is currently a full professor (tenure track), teaching computer security for over 20 years. He promotes experiential learning in cybersecurity education. To provide students with hands-on experiences, funded by multiple grants from the National Science Foundation and over a period of 20 years, he has developed over 40 labs (called SEED labs). These labs are now being used by over 1100 universities, colleges, and high schools in 80 countries. He wrote a popular textbook on cybersecurity, which has been adopted by over 280 schools worldwide.
In 2010, his SEED project was highlighted by the National Science Foundation in a report sent to the Congress. The report highlights "17 projects that represent cutting-edge creativity in undergraduate STEM classes nationwide". Due to the impact of the SEED labs, he received the "2017 Academic Leadership" award from the 21st Colloquium for Information System Security Education. In 2019, Syracuse University bestowed upon him the Meredith Professorship, the university's most prestigious honor for teaching excellence.
More courses by Wenliang Du
Internet Security: A Hands-on Approach (2023)
4.8 (1,118 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 19.4h
$99.99
More Hacking courses
Getting Started with Wireshark: The Ultimate Hands-On Course (2025)
4.8 (12,167 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 4.4h
$109.99
The Ultimate Dark Web, Anonymity, Privacy & Security Course (2025)
4.8 (9,329 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 10.3h
$27.99
Computer Basics for Beginners: Understanding Computer Basics (2025)
4.8 (4,524 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 5.8h
$14.99
Ultimate F5 LTM Training from Beginner to Expert 2026
4.8 (1,927 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 13.5h
$84.99
IP Addressing and Subnetting - Hands-on Learning Approach (2020)
4.8 (1,522 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 4.2h
$15.99
Cisco BGP Masterclass for Enterprise Network Engineers (2026)
4.8 (1,369 Reviews)
Provider: Udemy
Time: 16.4h
$11.99
Reviews
By Marek Maks on 1/8/2025
as for now the best course from cybersecurity yet. Hard to understand (chinese accent) but a lot of content value.
By João Victor Portal on 1/1/2025
Very good course. A suggestion of improvement: the auto generated captions and transcription is not good, it could be replaced by manually written captions and transcription.
By Abhilash J V on 3/28/2024
The course is exceptional, and i highly recommend it to anyone who are interested in security. I took it as i was curious about XSS and SQL injection attacks and gained a solid understanding of major web security issues and vulnerabilities.The professor has deep knowledge of the subject.
By TsaiTing Yeh on 7/23/2023
Amazing teacher! Thanks! This is the best course in Udemy! This course is a veritable goldmine for anyone keen to delve into the world of web security. Prof. Du's expertise and the course's blend of theory and practice make this an unbeatable choice for aspiring web security professionals. Highly recommended! Thank you, Prof. Du, for sharing your profound knowledge and expertise, and for creating such an effective and hands-on approach to understanding web security.
By William Caouette on 3/27/2023
Très bien vulgarisé et permet de bien comprendre certains concepts qui peuvent paraître floue aux premiers abords grâce aux labs.
By Kim on 11/7/2022
This class is good, but sometimes the message is not very clear and hard to understand, I imagine it would be better with prior knowledge of cybersecurity basics. Overall, this teacher is engaging and good!
By Achintya Jaiswal on 7/5/2022
This is definitely a good course to understand the types of attacks and their countermeasures. The examples and labs are great way to efficiently understand the topic. Although, the some of the most common attacks are covered here, I would have liked it even more if few more types of attacks were included, like HTTP Smuggling, MIME Spoofing, etc. Also, in the end a bonus video can be added wherein some contents could added as to what topics/courses to explore next (could be more advanced attacks or anything that could help in understanding what the next step could be in learning security).
By Dalchandra Sharma on 5/10/2022
Thanks to Senior who Prefer Prof. Du's Computer Security course. I personally believe in Learning by Doing.I know previously Cryptography and Network Security Concepts but after watching Prof. Du's Course I could Implement them from scratch.
By Jean Wilker Elysee on 3/8/2022
It was amazing. This course provides me with a good undesrtanding of SQL Injection attacks. In the past, I was very confused about how attacks take place; at this moment, I am able to write a chapter book on SQL Injection.
By Sergio Muñoz Blanco on 11/16/2021
High quality contents, really good and detailed explanations. I've tried before to understand CSRF attacks but this curse is, by far, the one that has offered the best explanation.
Quality Score
No CourseDuck member has rated this course yet. Taken it? Give each part a thumbs up or down.
Overall Score : 96 / 100








