4 months after passing the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) in February, I went for the EC-Council Certified Security Analyst / Licensed Penetration Tester (ECSA/LPT) course 23-27th June 2008 (you need to pass CEH first before going for ECSA/LPT).

This is the most expensive training I have ever attended, at well over RM7,000 for 5 days.

My instructor was Semi Yulianto, senior technical trainer/ consultant, EC-Council’s Instructor of the Year 2008 for Asia Pacific and a regular feature at hacker conventions in the region. He’s got one of the longest certification lists I have ever seen (23), including MCT, MCSE, MCDBA, CCNP and CHFI.

Semi was born in Pontianak, Kalimantan, Indonesia.

The exam’s held Friday afternoon, takes 2 hours, 50 multiple-choice questions (A to D), online via Internet. Hence if Internet down, can’t take the exam. I passed the exam at 98%.

It seems that EC-Council Phileo Damansara Time.com internet connectivity is rather unstable, some innocuous sites appear to be blocked.

There’s no exam for the LPT, I was informed that I need to pay USD500 (not included in the ECSA training cost, renewable yearly) and submit my CV and letter of confirmation from the police stating I do not have any criminal record to EC-Council USA.

Apparently Malaysia has less than 10 ECSA/LPT practitioners now.

The market rate for LPT work in Malaysia is RM2,000 per day.

For those budding hackers out there, turn your passion into a career. Being a trainer can be a lucrative profession. Semi mentioned that he works 2 weeks a month and gets minimum RM14K per month. If he does other work, that’s extra. Plus he gets to travel frequently to countries in the region.

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