Cyber crime fighters promote ‘licensed penetration’

In a bid to curtail cyber crime - a major reason for organisations losing information to hackers and competitors – the UK-based cyber crime fighters, SSR-I, are taking their Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) training courses throughout Europe.

Already, SSR-I have signed up a number of authorised centres for security training for their seminar-based training programmes in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Denmark. These include New Horizons, Train & Consult, and Training Camp in Germany; Upgrade and GED Systemes in France, New Horizons and GKN in the Netherlands and Denmark.

SSRI is the master distributor in the UK and Europe for the products developed by The International Council of Electronic Commerce Consultant (EC-Council) – the international organisation driving standards and skills for e-Commerce Consultants.

“Preventing licensed penetration means ensuring that people can’t hack your systems and take information without you knowing,” explained SSR-I’s Rajive Kapoor. “Figures reveal that most systems information theft comes from inside organisations.”

According to a survey by the American Society for Industrial Security and PriceWaterhouse Coopers, Fortune 1,000 companies lost more than $45bn last year from trade theft. Other estimates put the figure closer to $100bn since some 50 per cent of victim organisations do not report the crime because of fears for their market credibility and stock market price.

“Some reports claim that this figure is as much as $1.6tr. However, whatever the true figure, it is a large number – and the cost to organisations is high,” said Kapoor.

“On the other hand, rectification and prevention are simple and, by comparison, inexpensive.

“Most organsiations don’t know that they are the victims of information theft but, if does happen to your organisation, you need to find out how it happened, who did it and stop it happening again,” Kapoor added.

“Moreover, you need to be able to produce incontrovertible evidence of the theft or malicious act so that, if the worst comes to the worst, your HR department can take the relevant steps. This is particularly important in countries such as Germany and France, which have stricter laws about dismissing employees than we have in the UK.

“And, in the last resort, you can then provide the police with what they need to take the appropriate action,” he added.

“Hackers and your competitors are not sleeping. They have plenty of scope to take the information on your systems or disrupt your network,” said Konstantin Mroncz, director of Train & Consult, based in Mannheim, Germany.

“Organisations must protect themselves – or pay the price.

“If a company’s network goes down or data is destroyed, every employee with a PC becomes unproductive – and, in a large company, that can amount to a great deal of lost production,” Mroncz added.

“To protect your company from being spied upon, you need to first understand how it’s done. If your system still gets compromised, then computer forensics comes to the rescue – and this is why proper employee training and security policies are vital,” said Joern Oelze, managing director of New Horizons, in Germany.

According to Nils Gutsche, of New Horizons, in Frankfurt, Germany: “People insure against conventional threats such as fire, water and theft – yet data theft is also a risk. The SSR-I/EC-Council CEH courses help you find potential weak points in your system and help you to build and implement a successful strategy to minimise the risk of losing your data or your network unlawfully – whether this is because of malicious actions or for commercial gain.”

New Horizons, along with SSR-I’s other European partners are beginning this process of education with a seminar highlighting 11 topics related to licensed penetration.

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Notes for Editors:

About the Licensed Penetration Tester programme
The programme includes:
• Ethical hacking myths
• Intellectual property theft
• Corporate espionage
• Common blunders in a high-tech world
• Habits of highly malicious hackers
• Security solutions to avoid the breaches
• The implication of hacking
• Legal considerations
• Risk to web enabled application and web services
• Risk mitigation strategies
• Live hacking demo including applications hacking

About SSRI
SSRI has been formed as the master distributor in the UK and Europe for the products developed by the EC-Council – the international organisation driving standards and skills for e-Commerce Consultants.

The launch platform in the UK is the Licensed Penetration Tester programme that allows organisations to test their networks using the approaches and techniques that hackers would use. This program develops skills for Ethical Hacking, Forensics and Penetration Testing that will identify weaknesses and plug them – before malicious hackers get to them.

SSRI programmes are delivered via 38 delivery locations throughout Europe in association with its group of European partners including Training Camp, IT Security Training, Net security, BT Britannia and ASG training in the UK; New Horizons, Train & Consult, and Training Camp in Germany; Upgrade and GED Systemes in France; New Horizons and GKN in the Netherlands and Denmark.

About EC-Council
The International Council of Electronic Commerce Consultant (EC-Council) has developed a certification program that combines relevant education with an examination assuring professional competency. The Internet's rapid evolution into electronic commerce and full-featured information delivery system has meant that IT professionals need a new range of skills.
The EC-Council has defined those skills in terms of internet security and this, in turn, means that organisations can use their firewalls, encryption and other security technologies to the maximum effect. These programs extend to website marketing, and other electronic commerce issues such as internet law, intellectual property rights, domain names, and copyright law.
EC-Council conferences allow professionals to work together to learn the latest news and counter-measures on security and network with other members from around the world.
The mission of the EC-Council is to:
• Foster professional standards
• Provide for communication among all E-commerce professionals, including corporate e-commerce consultants in government, business, and education, independent consultants, and aspiring e-commerce professionals such as students
• Provide for education through the development of curriculum, publishing of articles and books, professional papers, and the sponsoring of seminars and conferences
• Provide accreditation for E-Commerce certification and training programs

The EC-Council is a member-driven organisation whose members include practitioners from all levels of various fields and in a broad range of industries. Some of these members include Erik Laykin Pacific Rim, FBI/Infragard and Eric Yocam, Microsoft Corporation. The EC-Council also has had some high profile testimonials from Novell (Canada), the Ministry of Defence (UK), the Royal Navy (UK), the US Army (Germany), Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabia) and the National Bank of Kuwait (Kuwait)

For further information, please contact:

SSRI
Contact name: Rajive Kapoor
Contact email: Rajivek@SSR-i.com
Contact telephone: 0845 430 9981
Contact mobile: 07973 114057

Web site: http://www.SSR-i.com

News release distributed via Bob Little Press & PR (tel 01727 860405)