Description

A focused course, tailored for you

AppSec Testing at Scale: From Findings to Fixes

Build the remediation workflow that turns SAST, DAST, and SCA output into shipped fixes, not a growing backlog.

Application security managers at high-volume SaaS companies run mature scanning pipelines that surface hundreds of findings per sprint cycle. The problem is not the tooling. It is the 40-60% of findings that sit in triage limbo because engineers and security do not share a severity language, ownership is ambiguous, and the evidence chain required for compliance audits takes a separate manual effort to reconstruct.

$199 one-time

Tailored to your situation. Access within 24 hours. 30-day money-back.

Includes a hand-built implementation playbook delivered alongside course access, generated for your specific situation.

Why this course

At a cloud platform company operating at enterprise scale, your AppSec testing program produces findings from multiple layers: SAST in the CI pipeline, DAST against staging environments, SCA on every dependency update, and manual pen-test findings from third-party assessors. Each tool speaks a different dialect. A CVSS 7.4 in one scanner is a blocker in another. Engineering product owners want business-risk framing; compliance reviewers want framework citations. The remediation backlog grows not because engineers refuse to fix things, but because the finding-to-ticket translation breaks down at every handoff. This course teaches the skill of bridging that gap systematically, with repeatable artefacts that work whether you are presenting to a developer, a product manager, or a SOC 2 auditor.

What you walk away with

Produce a finding report format that engineers act on without escalation, with clear severity rationale and a suggested fix pattern.
Build a triage workflow that classifies false positives, accepted risks, and genuine remediations in a single pass with auditable decisions.
Negotiate severity disagreements with product owners using a business-risk framework that maps CVSS scores to sprint-planning language.
Maintain a SCA dependency governance process that meets ISO 27001 A.12.6 and SOC 2 CC6.1 without manual evidence reconstruction.
Produce compliance-ready AppSec evidence packages that satisfy external auditors from your existing tooling output.
Reduce mean-time-to-remediation on critical findings by eliminating the handoff friction between security triage and engineering execution.

The 12 modules

Module 1. The Anatomy of a Stalled Remediation

Most remediation backlogs stall at the same three points: ambiguous severity, unclear ownership, and insufficient fix guidance. This module maps the failure modes using real finding lifecycle data, establishing the diagnostic framework the rest of the course builds on. You will leave with a backlog audit template that identifies which stalled findings are recoverable and which need to be closed as accepted risks.

Module 2. Severity Translation: CVSS to Business Risk

CVSS is a technical scoring standard. Engineering product owners plan in terms of customer impact, sprint cost, and regulatory exposure. This module teaches the translation layer between the two: how to map a CVSS 7.x finding to a business-risk statement that a product owner can act on, and how to document that translation so it holds up under audit scrutiny. Includes worked examples across web application, API, and dependency vulnerability types.

Module 3. Writing Findings That Engineers Fix

A finding report that requires a back-and-forth to clarify before engineering can act on it is a finding that will be deprioritised. This module covers the structure of an actionable finding: root cause, reproduction steps, suggested fix pattern, and test-of-fix criteria. You will build a finding template for your three primary finding categories (SAST, DAST, SCA) that eliminates the clarification round-trip.

Module 4. False Positive Governance Without Losing the Audit Trail

Accepting a finding as a false positive without documentation creates a compliance gap. Rejecting every possible false positive creates noise that discredits the entire programme. This module establishes a false-positive review process with a two-person sign-off pattern, a time-boxed review cycle, and an evidence artefact that satisfies SOC 2 and ISO 27001 reviewers without requiring a separate manual step. Covers SAST, DAST, and SCA false-positive patterns by tool category.

Module 5. Ownership Assignment That Sticks

In a large engineering organisation, a finding assigned to a team rather than a person tends to sit unactioned. This module covers the ownership models that work at scale: service-ownership mapping, escalation paths for cross-team dependencies, and the handoff artefact that moves a finding from the security queue to an engineering ticket with accountability intact. Includes the ownership conflict resolution process for findings that touch shared libraries or platform components.

Module 6. SAST Integration and Noise Reduction

High-volume SAST pipelines in large codebases produce finding rates that overwhelm triage capacity if the tooling configuration is not tuned. This module covers the rule-set configuration decisions that reduce noise without reducing coverage: suppression policies, custom rule calibration, baseline suppression for legacy code, and the review cycle that keeps suppression lists from becoming a permanent exemption layer. Specific to CI-integrated SAST workflows in polyglot environments.

Module 7. DAST Coverage and the Staging Environment Problem

Dynamic testing against staging environments produces findings that do not always reflect production risk, and production-equivalent environments are often unavailable or incomplete. This module covers the staging-versus-production gap: how to scope DAST coverage to match production attack surface, how to handle findings that cannot be reproduced in staging, and how to document environment limitations in the compliance evidence package. Covers authenticated scanning, API surface coverage, and DAST finding triage in a continuous deployment context.

Module 8. SCA Dependency Governance at Enterprise Scale

Software composition analysis produces a continuous stream of dependency alerts as upstream CVEs are published. At enterprise scale, an undifferentiated alert stream creates noise that engineering deprioritises. This module builds a dependency governance process with a severity-and-exploitability filter, an escalation threshold for critical dependencies, a waiver process for accepted risks, and a quarterly review cycle. Maps directly to ISO 27001 A.12.6 and SOC 2 CC6.1 evidence requirements.

Module 9. Pen Test Finding Integration and Third-Party Handoff

Third-party pen test findings arrive in report formats that do not match your internal tracking system and require manual re-entry and re-scoring. This module covers the integration workflow: ingestion, severity normalisation, ownership assignment, and the SLA framework for third-party findings versus internally-sourced findings. Includes the acceptance-criteria document that governs retesting sign-off and closes the finding in a way that satisfies the original assessor and your compliance team simultaneously.

Module 10. Compliance Evidence Without a Separate Evidence Run

SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 audits require evidence that AppSec controls are operating effectively. Most teams produce this evidence by running a manual export and formatting exercise at audit time. This module builds the evidence architecture that produces audit-ready artefacts as a by-product of the normal remediation workflow: what your ticket system, finding tracker, and tooling dashboards need to export, and how to structure the evidence package so an external auditor can navigate it without a guided walkthrough.

Module 11. Reporting to the Security Leadership and the Board

Application security programme health is difficult to communicate to stakeholders who are not reading finding counts. This module covers the metrics framework that translates AppSec operational data into executive reporting: mean-time-to-remediation by severity tier, remediation rate trends, backlog age distribution, and the compliance posture summary. Includes the one-page programme health dashboard format that works for both a quarterly CISO review and a board-level risk update.

Module 12. Building the Remediation Playbook for Your Organisation

The final module consolidates the course into a single, organisation-specific remediation playbook: your finding classification taxonomy, your severity translation matrix, your ownership model, your false-positive governance process, and your compliance evidence architecture. By the end of this module you have a documented, reviewable process that can be handed to a new team member or presented to an external auditor as evidence of a mature, operating AppSec programme.

How this addresses your situation

Specific modules that map to what you said you are dealing with.

Finding sits in triage for three weeks because severity is disputed: Modules 2, 5.

External auditor asks for AppSec evidence and the export takes two days to prepare: Modules 10, 12.

SCA alert volume is so high that engineering has stopped reading the queue: Module 8.

Third-party pen test findings are re-entered manually and SLAs are missed: Module 9.

What you get with this course

12 written modules covering the full finding-to-fix remediation cycle.
Finding report template (three variants: SAST, DAST, SCA) with worked examples.
Severity translation matrix mapping CVSS scores to business-risk language.
False-positive governance process with sign-off artefact and audit-trail documentation.
SCA dependency governance process mapped to ISO 27001 A.12.6 and SOC 2 CC6.1.
Compliance evidence architecture template for SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 audits.
Hand-built implementation playbook delivered alongside course access, specific to your programme context.

What you will have in hand by Day 1, Week 1, Month 1

Course access and hand-built implementation playbook provisioned within 24 hours of purchase.

Each module is self-paced; the full course is typically completed over two to three weeks.

The implementation playbook is hand-built for your specific programme context by Gerard.

Before and after

Before

AppSec findings close at a low rate because severity is contested, ownership is ambiguous, and producing compliance evidence requires a manual export exercise at audit time.

After

A documented remediation process where findings arrive in engineer-ready format, severity is agreed by a shared framework, and compliance evidence is a by-product of the normal workflow.

What happens if you do not address this

A growing remediation backlog is a quantifiable compliance exposure. SOC 2 Type II evidence of AppSec control effectiveness requires demonstrating that findings are being tracked and closed within SLA. A backlog that does not move is evidence of a control that is not operating effectively, which becomes a qualified opinion or a finding in the audit report.

Who it is for

You are a Manager of Application Security Testing at a SaaS company with a large engineering organisation. You own the toolchain selection, the testing methodology, and the remediation tracking process. You have achieved baseline coverage across SAST, DAST, and SCA. The challenge now is throughput: how many of your findings actually close, on what timeline, and with what evidence. You are accountable to both the security organisation and the compliance function, and the two audiences want different things from the same finding.

Who this is NOT for. Security analysts who are still building their initial scanning coverage. Pen testers whose primary work is offensive research rather than programme management. Engineers who want to learn how to fix vulnerabilities rather than how to manage the remediation process.

How it arrives

Text-based course in the Art of Service learning environment, plus downloadable templates and worked examples for every module, plus the hand-built implementation playbook delivered alongside course access.

Time investment. Approximately two to three hours per module. The full 12-module course requires 24 to 36 hours. Most participants work through one to two modules per week alongside their normal role.

Why $199 is the right number

Generic application security certifications (CSSLP, CEH) cover the technical testing disciplines but do not teach the remediation programme management skills this course focuses on. Internal knowledge transfer from a more senior team member is the common alternative, but it is unstructured, not documented, and does not produce the compliance evidence artefacts the course does. Consulting engagements that assess your programme and produce a gap report cost significantly more and deliver a report, not a skill.

FAQ

Does this course assume a specific scanning tool stack?

No. The frameworks and templates are tool-agnostic. Modules reference common tool categories (SAST, DAST, SCA) and give examples from widely-used platforms, but the processes work regardless of which specific products you use.

Is this relevant if we already have a remediation process in place?

Yes. The course is designed for managers who have baseline coverage but are experiencing throughput problems. The modules on severity translation, false-positive governance, and compliance evidence architecture are specifically useful when the tooling is running but the closing rate is low.

What is in the implementation playbook?

The hand-built playbook is specific to your programme context based on the information provided at purchase. It maps the course frameworks to your organisation's tooling, team structure, and compliance requirements, and gives you a prioritised 90-day implementation sequence.

30-day money-back guarantee. If after a week of working through the materials this is not what you needed, reply to the receipt email and a full refund is processed. No questions, no forms.

Within 24 hours your account in the learning environment is provisioned and the tailored implementation playbook is delivered alongside it.