CICRA, EC-Council sponsor first-ever Hacking Challenge and Information Security Quiz

CICRA Institute of Education in association with the International Association of Electronic Commerce Consultants (EC-Council), USA is sponsoring the first-ever Hacking Challenge and Information Security Quiz in Sri Lanka.

Each member of the winning team of the Hacking Challenge and the Information Security Quiz will receive a free training voucher to follow globally recognized, prestigious but expensive Certified Ethical Hacker (C|EH) training programme at the state of the art computer laboratory at the CICRA Institute of Education in Colombo.

CICRA Director/CEO Boshan Dayaratne said, “Normal course fee of a C|EH program per person is Rs. 150,000. EC-Council, USA has agreed to provide complimentary courseware whilst we are offering free training to the winners of the Hacking Challenge and the Information Security Quiz.”

 He added, “In the modern world information is the key to success. Therefore, information security is very important in the corporate and also government sectors. That is why we are promoting the Hacking Challenge and the Information Security Quiz. C|EH program trains information security professionals to think and act as hackers but practice only as ethical hackers to defend IT systems of their organisations. This qualification is even recognized by the US Department of Defence.”

Hacking or gaining access to computer file or network illegally or without authorisation has become a serious cyber crime all over the world.

Organised by Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team (Sri Lanka CERT), a fully owned subsidiary of the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA), the Hacking Challenge and the Information Security Quiz will be held respectively on 13 and 14 October at the ICTA premises and at Hotel Renuka, Colombo respectively.

The two competitions are organized as part of the National Cyber Security Week.

Sri Lanka CERT said that the Hacking Challenge has two objectives.

“One is to allow penetration testing enthusiasts to measure their skills in a simulated environment, free of legal repercussions; the other objective is to allow these enthusiasts to be rewarded, if they rack up the highest points according to the scoring system – by way of C|EH training,” Sri Lanka CERT said.

Meanwhile, Security Quiz is targeted at students in tertiary education institutions. “The quiz will be conducted over eight rounds, each round comprising questions from a specialised security area”.

Sri Lanka CERT is mandated with the protection of Information and Information Systems within the state sector, particularly in regard to the e-Sri Lanka initiative. At the same time Sri Lanka CERT is also mandated to extend its services to the private sector and general public. It is a full member of the Asia Pacific CERT and Forum of Incident Response Security Teams (FIRST) associations. Sri Lanka CERT also assists the public by combating common cyber security incidents such as Facebook and web mail account compromise.