Nigeria needs about 6,000 qualified Licensed Penetration Testers (LPTs) to manage its Internet security issues optimally, according to Sanjay Bavisi, president of the EC-Council University.
Speaking at the IT Job Fair 2008 organized by Lagos IT training institute New Horizons, Bavisi lamented the fact that Nigeria has only one LPT as of now, despite the country's large population and its attendant Internet security matters. Moved by this situation and the estimated 20,000 job fair participants, Bavisi offered scholarships worth US$44,000 to outstanding students. The offer attracted a rush among youth attendees, who would be required to pass a pre-registration test and meet basic requirements as conditions of the scholarship.
LPTs are licensed to use "LPT Audited" logos in their projects and, in some cases, are referred to as "ethical hackers."
As corporate organizations search for individuals who can analyze vulnerabilities of the network and be trusted not to disclose those vulnerabilities to competitors, penetration testers are in high demand, Bavisi said.
"Licensed Penetration Testers are preferred over non-licensed ones by companies for recruitments and assignments," he added.
EC-Council University is an information security training institute with branches in more than 60 countries.