Automate the repetitive parts of security work: decoding data, parsing logs, checking file integrity and calling security APIs
Put this course to work on real challenges and in-browser labs. Each CTF category is a trek through the Himalaya, climbed one stop at a time. Free to play.
Security work is full of repetitive tasks: decoding the same kinds of data, digging through log files, checking that files have not changed, looking things up in APIs, writing the same report every week. Python turns each of those into a script you write once and run forever.
This course teaches practical Python for security work, starting from the basics. You will handle text, bytes and encodings, parse logs with regular expressions to spot suspicious activity, hash files to detect tampering, call web APIs safely (including checking passwords against known breaches without ever sending them), and package your scripts as reliable command-line tools with arguments, logging and reports.
Every lesson is built around a small, useful tool you can adapt to your own systems. The final assignment is a log-analysis tool of your own. Along the way you will pick up exactly the skills the Misc, Crypto and Forensics treks on NepSec CTF reward.
3 sections, 8 lessons, 13m total
Incident response engineer in Kathmandu and builder of NepSec
I'm an incident response engineer at Stellar Computer Systems (SCS) in Kathmandu, where I lead incident response, analyse threats and advise clients on their security posture. My work spans security operations, threat detection, threat intelligence, security engineering and vulnerability assessment. I'm listed in Apple's Security Hall of Fame for responsibly disclosing vulnerabilities in Apple's infrastructure, and I hold certifications from Microsoft, Fortinet, Cisco, Google, CrowdStrike and The SecOps Group. When the tools I need don't exist, I build them. That's how NepSec Intel, NepSec Academy and NepSec CTF came to be. My courses teach the same practical skills I use at work, and NepSec CTF is where you put them to the test.
5 published courses
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No, but you should have written a little code in some language. The course explains the Python features it uses as it goes.
Any. The scripts run on Windows, macOS and Linux. The log examples use Linux formats, and sample logs are provided in the lessons.
Yes. Complete every lesson, pass the quiz and submit the log-analysis tool to earn a certificate of completion.