EC-Council, leaders in information security training and education, in conjuction with SIMOS Consultancy Service Ltd have launched a network security product to deter hackers’ from infiltrating information systems. The Certified Ethical Hacker version 7 (CEHv7) product, engineered by professional hackers and security researchers, contains built tools used by cyber criminals to gain there way into system networks.

With the upcoming trend of fiber connectivity, especially  the laid undersea fibre cables in Kenya, more internet portals open up which increases the number cyber crime attacks in the country. It therefore becomes important to train ICT professionals on ways to mitigate these attacks.

CEHv7 aims to provide a comprehensive ethical hacking and network security training program to meet the standards of highly skilled security professionals.

Balamurugan Rajagopal, Managing Director of SIMOS Consultancy says that as a company they focus on information security. According to him, a lot of people in Kenya confuse information security concept with information technology security. Hence, a major information security void exists in Kenyan organizations and institutions, bringing a need for training and equipping company's cyber crime defenders. This makes the Ethical Hacking course relevant, especially in this era of information diversity.

This event saw the awarding of certificates to seven ethical hackers from different organizations that had undergone the training programme on Ethical Hacking. Among the participants were from the eGovernment of Kenya, Kenya Anti-corruption Commission, Kenya Forensics and representatives from other consultancy firms.Kenya Methodist University is one of the first universities to engage with EC-Council in information security programmes.

“The major hindrance to information security is lack of proper policies to implement them," says Mathew Troniak, Senior Sector Advisor Finance USAID. He further added that the value of an organization is protected when its information is safely handled.