Back to blogs
Written by
Vasiliy Gualoto
Published on
April 30, 2024

Top 5 smart contract auditing and security courses

Top smart contract auditing and security courses to become a smart contract auditor or level up your web3 development career

Table of Contents

In this article, you will find the ultimate list of the top smart contract auditing and security courses you should look at if you want to become a smart contract auditor, or level up your web3 development skills

The number of hacks and security vulnerabilities has led to billions of dollars in losses in the past three years, and even though we saw a decrease in 2023, we have a long way to go as an industry.

Ensuring that web3 protocols are more secure, bug-free, and attack-resistant is a continuous effort. Accomplishing top-quality industry smart contracts is a hard task, and the industry desperately needs more web3 developers and smart contract auditors with the correct knowledge and the best security tools to face the security issues and vulnerabilities out there.

Top 5 smart contract auditing and courses

Here are the top 5 smart contract auditing and security courses anyone considering becoming a smart contract auditor and researcher should take:

Best Course Overall: Cyfrin Updraft Security and Auditing Course

Price: Free

Duration: 24 hours

Image of cyfrin updraft where you can learn smart contract auditing and become a smart contract auditor from top security courses

This is the ultimate course for learning smart contract auditing and research, with over 24 hours and 100+ top industry lessons. Patrick Collins and Tincho will guide you from zero to expert smart contract security researcher, completely for free.

This is the most complete and advanced security, auditing, EVM, Assembly, Yul, HUFF, Formal Verification and DeFi course ever created, meant to teach not just web3 security researchers but also those wanting to become one of the best smart contract developers on the planet.

At the end of the course, you will have five complete audits on your portfolio, written learning from top real-world professionals in the industry, and that’s not all. You will learn

Cyfrin Updraft also offers courses about formal verification, web3 devops, and Foundry, as well as 60hrs+ video and written lessons, free of charge.

Key Features

  • No registration is needed. You can start learning right away.
  • Taught by 2 lead auditors in the industry and with 7 professional guest lecturers.
  • Complete and well-explained audits to add to your resume.
  • The most complete curriculum for smart contract auditors.
  • It’s the first part of a more complete assembly EVM and Opcodes course. 

Best Paid Course: Smart Contract Hacking by Johnny Time

Price: $399

Duration: 30 hours

Image of jhonny time smart contract auditing course, one of the top smart contract auditing courses

Created by web3 Auditor and Youtuber Johnny Time, this Smart Contract Hacking course is designed with practicality. It is full of hands-on exercises and a comprehensive curriculum that will prepare you to start nailing the competitive audit leaderboards. 

The entry-level is beginner-friendly, and this is a solid option if you have some bucks to spare to become a better smart contract auditor and researcher.

Key Features

  • 320+ videos with 40+ exercises. 
  • A dedicated Discord community with students and experienced auditors helping each other.
  • Taught by 4 skilled and experienced auditors with real results and competitive audit winners.
  • Designed both for beginners and experienced web3 developers.
  • Completion certificates.

Best Crash Course: Smart Contract Security and Auditing 101 by Chainlink

Price: Free

Duration: 1 hour

chainlink top smart contract auditing course

This is an amazing introduction to learn smart contract auditing, taught by a “Shadowy Super-Coder,” Andrej Rakic from Chainlink Labs. It covers all the basic topics and most common security vulnerabilities and can be found free on the Chainlink YouTube channel

Key Features

  • This course will give you all the basic concepts of web3 security in just one hour, ideal for anyone who hasn’t experienced anything related to security.
  • It covers all the most common security flaws and vulnerabilities with clear examples.
  • Gives a nice introduction to Best practices and Auditing Techniques.

Certified Smart Contract Auditor by Blockchain Council

Price: $349

Duration: 10 hours

image of the certified smart contract security course on blockchain council

Expert industry auditors design the Blockchain Council course, and it covers all the concepts and topics a web3 auditor should know, from the fundamentals to advanced topics. It includes a comprehensive study on DeFi attacks and how to prevent them. 

Key Features

  • Blockchain Council is a reputed certification platform for web3.
  • Certified companies like Microsoft and IBM.
  • Hands-on practices on audits.
  • Finalization exam.

Advanced Web3 Security Course by Owen Thurm on YouTube

Price: Free

Duration: 11 hours

Experience matters, and learning smart contract security from auditors who put their hands on the dirt and made things happen is invaluable. Owen Thurm took the 4-week training he gave six security researchers and put it all together in a nice, well-packed Web3 security course

Key Features

  • Spends a good amount of time on the principles and basic concepts.
  • Well-explained sections with graphs and diagrams
  • Live audit sessions with real contests. 
  • A Yul master class going deep on the language.

Additional smart contract security learning resource

Image of solodit, where you can learn smart contract auditing looking at top auditors reports

Our industry evolves incredibly fast, so even though it is not a course to learn about smart contract auditing security,  Solodit.xyz is probably the best resource to learn the latest vulnerabilities and hacks

It aggregates over 8,000 security vulnerabilities and bounties from various security firms and top researchers worldwide. 

The platform aims to strengthen the security of decentralized apps and smart contracts by providing detailed reports on vulnerabilities, including:

  • The nature of the vulnerability,
  • The contract the vulnerability is present
  • The determined severity of the issue,
  • Pertinent information to understand and address the related security issue.

Solodit also offers advanced search and filtering tools to help users easily find specific vulnerabilities and bounties.

Conclusion: become a smart contract auditor

In this list of the top smart contract auditing and security courses, we’ve seen many great resources every developer should look into to become a smart contract auditor. 

Becoming a good security researcher and learning smart contract security is a continuous process; learning from different sources and examples and all the resources we listed here will make you stand up from the crowd. 

– If you want to learn how to become a blockchain developer or auditor and learn from the experts to write robust and reliable smart contracts, join Cyfrin Updraft now and start learning for free!

Secure your protocol today

Join some of the biggest protocols and companies in creating a better internet. Our security researchers will help you throughout the whole process.
Stay on the bleeding edge of security
Carefully crafted, short smart contract security tips and news freshly delivered every week.