APIIT becomes EC-Council Academia partner to offer Cyber Security Certifications

The Asia Pacific Institute of Information Technology (APIIT) Sri Lanka, a leading private higher education institution, has become an official EC-Council Academia partner in Sri Lanka. The first batch of APIIT students who participated in the training session under this programme have shown exceptional performance.

Cyber threats and crimes are currently increasing exponentially across the globe with mass scale data breaches and leaks being detected frequently. With such data breaches increasing each year, the protection of digital assets has become critical and top priority, hence it’s no wonder that the demand for cyber security professionals is at an all-time high.

Head of the APIIT School of Computing Prof. Priyantha Kumarawadu said, “We’re delighted to become an official academia partner of EC-Council which operates in more than 145 countries in the world: the premier provider of cyber security certifications in the world. We believe that this partnership with the EC-Council is a key part of realising our vision of creating highly skilled graduates in the domain of networking and cyber security.”

EC-Council Academia Coordinator at APIIT Dr. Harinda Fernando said “The EC-Council certifications are designed to launch students’ careers in the extremely lucrative domain of cyber security. Their comprehensive offering of certifications which include the world famous Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), Computer Hacking Forensics Investigator (C|HFI) and newly launched Certified Penetration Tester (CPENT) ensures that students who complete them develop the knowledge and practical skills required to be highly successful in the field of cyber security.”

The advent of cyber security has birthed a new and extremely lucrative career avenue with the rapidly growing need for cyber security experts to protect organisations from data breaches and cyber-attacks. It is estimated that within the next five years, 3,000 to 5,000 cyber security experts are required locally while the global requirement is estimated at around 1.5 million.

Because of this growing demand for qualified cyber security professionals, APIIT has not only become an EC-Council academia partner but has also launched the Cyber Security BSc (Hons) degree programme awarded by Staffordshire University, UK.

Students who join the cyber security degree at APIIT can elect to either complete their studies in Sri Lanka or opt to transfer to either Staffordshire University in UK or to Deakin University in Australia with full recognition of their studies here and with significant financial savings.

Prof. Kumarawadu also stressed the fact that APIIT is facilitating the teaching of both the EC-Council certifications and the degree awards with all required cutting edge IT infrastructure and excellent student support to afford students a quality and relevant learning experience.

“APIIT provides a high-quality holistic learning environment, an outstanding faculty, modern infrastructure, and excellent student support. The teaching and learning at APIIT has been developed so as to ensure that students will develop the practical skills required by the industry and cater to the rising demand for highly skilled cyber security professionals”.

This is illustrated by the outstanding results obtained by the first batch of APIIT students who followed the CEH certification at APIIT where out of the 16 students who sat the exam, 15 passed and with the average marks obtained by the batch being 88%.