Get Started with Spring Security and Protect Your API

Want to secure your Spring Boot based API now?

Then you are at the right place to get started fast without any fluff or artificially bloated material. Learn and use it now and not in a few months.

I probably don’t need to convince you that securing your API is essential nor that the one-stop-solution in a Spring-based API is Spring Security.

Spring Security can solve almost all problems we are facing with Security in an API. But it is one of the most complex modules of the whole Spring ecosystem too. Yet, you do only need a fraction of it to secure your API correctly. But knowing what that fraction is and learning is another thing. Following some outdated, short, not-working tutorials will not help you. It will slow you down in your learning process. Same is when you follow reference compendiums in book or now in video format. They throw all the functionality Spring Security offers at you, and you have to make sense out of it again on how and when to use it. Of course, without creating security issues in your production code…

Man, I learned it myself years ago in the pre-Spring Boot era by following online tutorials and an endless cycle of try and error. Banging my head on the keyboard all day long until it did not hurt anymore. Luckily, without security issues hitting production; found them earlier. If it weren’t for paid customer projects, I’d quit multiple times. It was insanely time-consuming and error-prone. I wasted so much time of my life.

I wish I could go back in time and help my former self with this course as I can help you now.

If you want to. I am not going to persuade you, or tellung you it is the best course since sliced bread or all those marketing bullshit. But if you value your time and do not want to go through similar frustration as I did, my course is your option to go.

Learn the essentials and understand the principles without overwhelming or frustration as fast as possible.

What you learn

In the course, we will secure a simple Kanban API. Starting from a single user version, we will secure it, enhance it to a multi-user version and protect it in various ways.

You will:

  • learn what Spring Security is
  • learn that Spring Security is not as complicated as you thought
  • understand how Spring Security works under the hood without going too deep and getting overwhelmed
  • learn how to configure it easily
  • learn to protect Spring MVC based endpoints so that nobody can mess with your API
  • store your user data in a DB and learn how to attach other storage
  • keep Passwords secure, so they are stored encrypted and never run havoc on you
  • understand how you can use custom roles & permissions
  • protect your business logic in service-classes and beyond
  • learn how to authenticate using basic auth, classic forms or token-based approaches like Spring Session, JWT and more
  • write unit and integration test for testing your application when security is enabled
  • learn how you can connect browser-based apps with your API in a safe manner

We focus on APIs here and will not cover security support in server-side templates (e.g. Thymeleaf) at this time.

What you get

7 Modules with 22 Lesson (Value 1300$)

Concise no-fluff information and step by step instructions. It’s the same material I teach in my in-class Spring Security Course. You learn the essentials you need 80% of the time.

Many exercises and tests to deepen your learning.

Module 1 - General Introduction

A brief introduction to the course like where to find the example source code, setup, etc.

Module 2 - Getting Started

In this module you learn the most important parts of Spring Security, how they work together (aka architecture) and mainly how the authentication flow works so, you can plugin and leverage the power of Spring Security in a breeze.

We also cover the sample application, secure it for the first time with Basic Auth using the dark automagic of Spring Boot to celebrate your first success.

Module 3 - User Management

You store users in a DB, learn how to handle passwords securely and how user management like registration is handled in Spring Security. Furthermore, you’ll make the sample application multi-user-capable.

Module 4 - Authorization

In this module, you learn how to authorize users in a web API on the Controller level and inside your service layers or even deeper. It covers roles, permissions, and everything you must know to only grant access to functionality a user is allowed to do.

Module 5 - Testing

Learn to write unit and integration tests when security is active and also check if your authorization work. Don’t write authorization logic without testing it!

Module 6 - Authentication

Finally, we back out of using HTTP Basic Auth and take a closer look at standard alternatives like form-based or token-based authentication methods. All from the perspective of building an API.

Module 7 - Misc

This module covers Cross Site Scripting (XSS), Cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) and Cross-Site-Request-Forgery (CSRF), and how Spring Security helps you in dealing with those issues.

Pocket Guide Spring Boot and Single-Page Applications (Value 25$)

You’ll receive my pocket guide Spring Boot and Single-Page Applications, which covers the 4 most used methods for integrating your Spring-based API with a single-page-application written in Javascript. The example app used Angular, but the concepts you learn work with any other front-end too.

Access to GitHub Repository with the Projects Code (Value 250$)

You’ll get access to the GitHub repository of the sample application. It includes the code of all lessons, nicely structured in branches so you can easily follow along or double check.

Mentoring by me (Value 3000$)

Access to me is highly limited, and companies pay over 3000 Euros a day to teach them the power of the Spring framework and how to improve their productivity. With getting their ROI back shortly.

You can have that too. You get 2 months of email-based mentoring on the course topics by me. I’ll keep you accountable and will make sure the course is delivering for you.

It is only available as part of the mentoring package.

A TOTAL VALUE OF $4575 but you pay ONLY $249. A saving of 94% actually!

Spring Security for APIs Essentials Course (VALUE $1575)

  • 7 modules, 21 lessons
  • concise, no-fluff, no bullshit
  • Incl. pocket guide Spring Boot and Single-Page Applications
  • Contains exercises and homework assignments
  • Unlimited updates. Never expires.
  • Access to GitHub repository with the projects code

Course with Mentoring (VALUE $4575)

  • incl. all of the previous PLUS
  • Send Repo/PR for code review and feedback
  • 2 months of email-based mentoring on the course topics. I'll keep you accountable and will make sure the course is delivering for you.
LIMITED TIME ONLY available till July 4th, enrollment is closed afer that

* prices are excluding VAT. If VAT applies it is shown on the checkout page. Sold by Paddle

Your 100% Money-Back Guarantee

The course comes with a 30-day money back guarantee. If for some reason you think the course does not deliver value to you, I will issue a refund.

Don't Take My Word For It

Here’s what other developers have said about my work:

I love Jens's writing style and how he's conveying things exceptionally well. Everyone really understands that.

Man, I wasted so many hours before with reading tutorials and fiddling everything together until it works. And this course explains topics in two pages, and I get results. Concise and to the point. Saved me a lot of time.

-- Michael I. about the Spring Security for APIs Essentials Course


Well i'm not used to buying things online, especially e-books. In fact, if that wasn't your short email course (which was great, though I'd already known those things at the moment of reading it), I wouldn't bother myself with buying something. Also, I didn't know if you are a real expert or not, because i've approached your website by a pure accident.

Due to your guide I've become aware of many basic but useful techniques, packages and annotations and how to use them.

I liked that resulting service requires a very little of code. I also liked that it was all made with Spring and the tools matched their purposes perfectly. You know, I hate if every time a new concept is introduced the author says "well, we should do this the hard and wrong way first and then rewrite everything to show an advantage of a new technique"

Also great was a finished and working microservice as a result, many important topics covered at once and explained clearly.

I would recommend it to any developer who is aware of building web services but needs to learn some Spring too, say, in two or three days. I wouldn't recommend it to an absolute beginner Java programmer since Spring is quite sophisticated and importance of topics covered might not be really clear for such people.

-- Nikita about Spring Boot Pocket Guide No. 1


In my everyday job I come across dozens of blogs, tutorials, how-to's and books about new exciting technologies. Some are "just-do-this-and-that-and-voilà" style, others are well thought deep exploration of the practices and frameworks, but few of them are well balanced and focused like this book.

Great way to roll your sleeves and start building resilient and robust services.

-- Sergio about Spring Boot Pocket Guide No. 3


A brilliant way to get started

A very nice brief book for getting started, if you are developer who learns by RnD after getting a little guidance on how to get started then this is your guidance on Spring Boot.

Touseef about Spring Boot Pocket Guide No. 1


I love this book. Just enough info to quickly get to the heart of the matter. I was new to Spring Boot, and this book helped give me perspective. Thank you for writing it.

-- Larry about Spring Boot Pocket Guide No. 1


I hesitated first to learn Spring Boot instead of Spring standalone. Glad I did anyway. Learned a good and easy way to develop an application with rest services and it even covered deployment. Now, I'm having other choices and know how to run a Spring app from scratch. Clearly, recommend it for beginners as it was easy to learn.

-- Benoit about Spring Boot Pocket Guide No. 1


I bought this book because I wanted to learn a simple way of creating API endpoints AND securing them and I was happy to see that this book delivered. Most of the material I've read on this before was either too complex, outdated or simply skipped the security part entirely...

-- Nelson about Spring Boot Pocket Guide No. 1


... This book ... is much easier and fit for someone like me who is just starting out. It’s structured and the author clearly is an expert in the material...

-- Hanete about Spring Boot Pocket Guide No. 1


Didn't know the book (exact) content prior to buying the book like with any other book. Delighted I bought it because it did cover exactly what I wanted. I love the simplicity. Just what you need – nothing else. Great Topics JWT, Spring Boot, example code. Recommend it!

-- Morten about Spring Boot Pocket Guide No. 2

and many more on my Spring Boot training page (In German though).

Still Have Questions?

How long will I get access to the course?

Forever, there is no time limit. The course is outlined to get you started in a couple of days. But you can go in your own pace, there is no limit in accessing the material. However, mentoring in the mentoring package lasts only two months after purchasing the course.

Will I get free updates?

Sure, it is lifetime access, and if I update course material, you'll immediately get the updates for free.

What is the course's format?

The course is text- and code-based and you will literally implement the app along. You learn best by coding.

Do you offer refunds if I don't like it?

The course comes with a 30-day money back guarantee. If for some reason you think the course does not deliver value to you, I will issue a refund.

Who are You, Anyways?

My name is Jens and I am a software developer from Frankfurt, Germany. Self-taught and professionally coding since 1999 in the Java universe. I started with Java 1.1 and enjoyed the pain of Java Enterprise - yeah EJB Spec 0.93b - that was awful. Spring saved me, so I switched to it over a decade ago and never looked back.

Some time ago I discovered that my purpose in life is helping others in making better decisions for themselves which they can live with. Instead of doing this on the go, I switched now full-time to teaching fellow devs.

My guides are the kind of material I love reading myself but never found before.

Buy now

Now or Never

Huh? Already running out of page. It is your turn now. Buy now and get ahead of your peers or leave the site and miss out the Spring opportunities.