Which of these free online cyber security courses come with a certificate
Across the 12 courses in the table, the credential depends on the publisher. Vendor platforms and Harvard's OpenCourseWare issue theirs free; MIT's audit track and Alison charge; Microsoft Learn, MIT OpenCourseWare and Udemy issue none.
Free cyber security certifications you can earn from these courses
CS50's Introduction to Cybersecurity awards a free CS50 Certificate at a unique URL when you score at least 70 percent on every problem and the final project; a verified certificate from edX is a paid extra. Cybersecurity Fundamentals on IBM SkillsBuild issues a learning badge through Credly, whose badge page lists the cost as free, once you pass the end-of-course assessment at 80 percent or higher. On Cognitive Class, Fundamentals of Encryption & Quantum-Safe Techniques, Application Security for Developers and DevOps Professionals and z/OS Networking Security Foundations each state that a certificate is offered, and the platform's FAQ says learning there is free of charge.
freeCodeCamp's Information Security Certification is claimed after the certification projects and published at a public URL on freecodecamp.org; freeCodeCamp now lists it as archived coursework, still open to study but no longer updated. All of these appear on the cyber security certifications page, where the CS50 and freeCodeCamp credentials are also tagged for veterans and job seekers.
Courses where the certificate is paid
MIT's Cybersecurity for Critical Urban Infrastructure is free to audit with access to all materials; the certificate track costs $139 and adds graded assignments, exams and an MIT certificate of completion. Alison's Diploma in Cyber Security is free to study in full, but the CPD-accredited diploma is a paid digital or printed product priced inside your account; a free Learner Record confirms what you completed instead.
Courses with no certificate at all
Microsoft's Introduction to security, compliance, and identity concepts ends in a Microsoft Learn trophy, not a certificate. MIT OpenCourseWare's Computer Systems Security issues no certificate or grade. Cyber Security 101 - Introduction and Online Safety Training: Cybersecurity Basics for Everyone are free Udemy courses, which by Udemy's policy come without a certificate of completion.
Which free cyber security courses suit beginners, and what comes after
The listed courses sort into tiers by what they assume.
No technical background
Harvard's free cyber security course is the natural first step. CS50's Introduction to Cybersecurity is written for technical and non-technical learners alike, runs five weeks with a lecture and an assignment each week plus a final project, and Harvard rates it introductory at 2 to 6 hours a week. It covers securing accounts, data, systems and software, protecting your own privacy, and weighing security as a trade-off between risk, cost and usability.
Cyber Security 101 - Introduction takes 54 minutes to explain attack types, threat actors and job roles. Online Safety Training covers passwords, two-factor authentication, phishing and privacy settings in 1 hour 36 minutes. Microsoft's SC-900 path takes 1 hour 36 minutes to define the shared responsibility model, defence in depth, Zero Trust and identity as a perimeter.
Some IT knowledge, wanting a credential
IBM's Cybersecurity Fundamentals badge takes 7.5 hours and covers threat groups, types of attack, social engineering, risk management, cryptography, and how organisations prevent, detect and respond to attacks. Fundamentals of Encryption & Quantum-Safe Techniques is a beginner primer of 3 hours on why encryption exists, how quantum computers are expected to break it, and the steps toward quantum-safe cryptography. Alison's Diploma in Cyber Security surveys vulnerability assessment, patching, hardening operating systems, firewalls and VPNs, cloud, IoT, cryptography and secure coding at beginner level.
Already coding or administering systems
Application Security for Developers and DevOps Professionals is an intermediate course of 17 hours on secure coding, DevSecOps, static and dynamic testing and the OWASP application security risks such as broken access control and SQL injection. freeCodeCamp's Information Security has you harden an Express app with HelmetJS, then write a port scanner in Python; it assumes back-end development. z/OS Networking Security Foundations (8 hours, intermediate) is for mainframe staff only. MIT's Computer Systems Security is a graduate class built on research papers, from buffer overflows to side-channel attacks, and assumes systems programming experience.
How to get free cyber security certifications from these courses
Each free credential has its own pass condition.
- CS50 Certificate: submit every problem and the final project through a free edX account and score at least 70 percent on each.
- IBM SkillsBuild badge: create a free account, pass the end assessment at 80 percent or higher and claim the badge from the Credly email.
- Cognitive Class certificates: enrol free and pass the graded review questions and final exam.
- freeCodeCamp: complete the Information Security projects in the browser, then claim the certification from your free account.
What these courses say about their own limits
The course pages are candid about limits. IBM describes the SkillsBuild badge as foundational, not a tools course. freeCodeCamp says its security certification is not a route to security-industry credentials. MIT's urban infrastructure course is about policy and management. Microsoft's path prepares the vocabulary for SC-900, but the exam is a paid product. What the listed courses give is structured, verifiable training and, for developers, real practice with hardening and scanning.
What to study before and after cyber security
Networking and operating systems come before security: see free IT courses. The coding side sits under free programming courses, MIT's 6.858 has company in free computer science courses, and every free credential across subjects is collected at free certifications.