12 Ways to Earn EC-Council ECE Credits

EC-Council requires certification holders to earn 120 ECE credits every three years to renew their certifications. There are certain requirements and ways to earn EC-Council ECE credits. We’ve explored 12 ways to earn EC-Council ECE Credits in this article.

📌 Hint: Do not skip this article, you will find FREE EC-Council ECE credit resources throughout the article.

Note that, this article goes through all EC-Council certifications. We have a separate article for the most popular EC-Council certification, CEH. If you have a CEH certification, you can read the CEH renewal article.

EC-Council ECE Credit Requirements

Before we go through how to earn ECE credits, we need to understand the EC-Council ECE requirements.

EC-Council requires certification holders to earn 120 ECE credits every three years. ECE stands for EC-Council Continuing Education and typically, one hour spent on an activity earns one ECE credit. Other than collecting renewal credits, certification holders must pay an 80 USD EC-Council annual membership fee.

Watch 12 Paths to Earn EC-Council ECE Credits Video

We’ve listed the 12 paths to earn ECE credits in our following YouTube video.

12 Ways to Earn EC-Council ECE Credits

The first step for EC-Council certification renewal is earning the required ECE credits. You need to earn 40 ECE credits every year and in total 120 ECE credits at the end of a three-year period. EC-Council published 25 activities that qualify for the ECE scheme. We’ve categorized these activities into 12 groups. Let’s go through each of these one by one.

1- Education Category (*Most Popular)

While there are 25 different ways to earn EC-Council ECE credits, the most popular way to earn ECEs for professionals is through online courses. Here are the top 5 reasons why professionals choose ECE courses to renew their certifications.

1. No Caps: There is no maximum limit for the Education category, so, you can earn all EC-Council ECE credit needs in one program, and renew your certification. You do not need to go elsewhere to find additional ECE credits to renew your certification.
2. Self-Paced: You do not need to attend an event, conference, or seminar. You can follow the courses at your place, at your pace.
3. Affordable: Depending on the program content, you can enroll in a self-paced EC-Council ECE Credits Online Course for ~$200-300. However, seminars or conferences start from $1,000, not only that, you may not earn all ECE credit needs in one event.
4. Requires less effort: When you enroll in EC-Council certification renewal courses, all you have to do is follow the curriculum, earn ECE credits, and renew your EC-Council certification. However, other ECE credit earning ways require significant effort from the certification holder such as creating content, sharing a presentation, authoring, etc.
5. Less prone to EC-Council® audit: Since the EC-Council renewal training programs are used by many certified professionals, EC-Council already has a track and record of the activities. However, for other categories, ECE credit submissions are more unique and may be more likely to hit an audit.

How to Renew EC-Council Certification with EC-Council ECE Credits Course

San Francisco Business School offers an EC-Council ECE Course program.

The program offers three self-paced business training programs: Executive Leadership, Strategy Creation & Execution, and Marketing Strategy. For each course in the program, SFBS awards a certificate of graduation. While earning ECE credits, you will earn reputable business merits to highlight in your resume and LinkedIn.

Watch How Melina Renewed Her CEH Certification

Melina Scotto is a CEH-certified Professional. Melina enrolled in the EC-Council ECE Credits Course from SFBS and renewed her CEH. Watch now her CEH renewal journey.

2- Earn EC-Council ECE Credits by Attending Events

Attending cybersecurity-related events will earn you EC-Council certification renewal ECE credits. Typically, a one-day activity earns 6 ECE credits. So, if you attended a two-day event, you will earn around 12 ECE credits. Attending events has benefits like expanding your professional network and learning the changing trends in your domain. However, there are some pitfalls to these events.

• Typically organized in big cities. If you are living in a relatively smaller city, you might not see any events to earn ECE credits.
• Requires in-person attendance. Many of the events take a few days, and you have to take days off from your work to attend these events.
• Expensive. Typically, these events are charged $1,000/day. So, for a two-day event, you need to pay around $2,000. Travel and accommodation, if needed, are not included in these fees.
• Does not earn ECE credits at once. Although it requires a significant amount of time and money, you cannot earn all the required renewal credits you need through one event.

Considering you are a full-time working professional and looking to earn EC-Council ECE credits in one step, we do not recommend this way for earning ECE hours.

San Francisco Business School offers a self-paced Free EC-Council ECE Course Online Program as well. If you attend this program, you can earn 3 Free ECE credits and submit them in the education category.

3- EC-Council ECE Credits through Reading

EC-Council accepts ECE credits through reading resources like:

• Information Security Book
• Article Review
• Book Review
• Case Study

1 hour of reading counts as 1 ECE credit, however, everyone’s reading pace is different. So, earning credits through reading resources is not a crystal clear way to go. EC-Council accepts a maximum of 5 ECE credits through reading. So, there is a limit to earning ECE credits through reading.

4- How to Renew EC-Council Certification Through Authoring

If you are authoring information security-related content, EC-Council accepts your activity as a source of credit. Some of the activities you can earn EC-Council ECE credits and the maximum ECE credits you can earn are as follows:

• Authoring Article/Book Chapter/White Paper – 20 credits
• Author Security Tool – 40 credits
• Authoring Book – 100 credits
• Authoring Course/Module – 40 credits

Do you write articles or blogs? Give webinars? Make videos? Today’s digital world is full of new content and anything you create counts towards your EC-Council re-certification. Typically, you can submit ECE credits for the hours you worked on content creation. For instance, if you wrote a blog post for an hour, you can claim 1 ECE credit in your EC-Council profile.

Authoring is cumbersome. There are several aspects of curating quality content. If your profession involves creating content, it is fine, you can earn EC-Council renewal credits while you are working. However, just to earn ECEs, creating content is a tough path.

5- Earn EC-Council ECE Credits through Presentation

Vendor sales and marketing presentations can count for ECE credits as well. These activities include vendor product or system-specific sales presentations related to the assessment of information systems. There is a maximum ECE credit earning limit of 3 ECE credits for this way.

6- Teaching

If you are an instructor, you can earn ECE credits by teaching an information security course. EC-council shows two types of teaching activities:

• Teach New – 21 credits:  You can earn a maximum of 21 EC-Council renewal ECE credits by teaching new courses. If you are teaching the same course for more than one time, you cannot submit ECE credits for the 2nd and next sessions.
• Teach Upgrade – 11 credits

If you are not an instructor, this way may not be a good option to renew your EC-Council certification.

7- How to Renew EC-Council Certification – Volunteering

EC-Council accepts volunteering activities as ECE credits as well. Below are two examples of volunteering activities:

• Volunteering for government, public sector, and other charitable organizations
• Non-security government/private sector/charitable organization committees

You can search for volunteering options on the EC-Council website as well. Note that, these activities may not be available in your location if you live in a small city. EC-Council has a limit of one ECE credit per volunteering activity.

8- Earn EC-Council ECE Credits – Identify New Vulnerability

Ethical Hackers identify the vulnerabilities of information systems and propose proactive prevention mechanisms before real hackers find them. As part of their role, if EC-Council-certified professionals identify a new vulnerability in information systems, this counts as 10 ECE credits toward renewing EC-Council certification.

9- EC-Council Certification Renewal – Certification Related to IT Security

If you earn a new information security certification, the EC-Council accepts it as a source of ECE credits. You can submit a maximum of 40 ECE credits for earning new certifications.

10- EC-Council ECE Credits – Association/Organization-Related Activities

There are several information security associations, groups, and chapters. The main goals of these associations and meetings are knowledge sharing, gathering, networking, and so on. EC-Council accepts renewal credits for activities related to associations.

• Chapter Meeting (per Meeting) – 1 credit: You can earn 1 credit per chapter meeting. Typically, these meetings are one to two hours and are held every few months.
• Chapter Membership (per Association/Organization) – 3 credits: If you are an active member of an information security chapter, this will earn you 3 ECE credits.
• Membership (per Association/Organization) – 2 credits: There are various information security associations and organizations. An active membership to each organization earns 2 credits.

If you are living in a small city, there might not be information security associations or chapter meetings.

11- EC-Council ECE Credits through EC-Council Activities

EC-Council has some activities that earn renewal credits as well. You can see each activity and how many ECE credits can be earned through each activity below:

• EC-Council Beta Exam Testing – 80 credits
• EC-Council ECE Examinations – 120 credits
• EC-Council Exam Survey – 20 credits
• EC-Council Item Writing – 3 credits
• EC-Council Job Task Analysis Survey – 40 credits
• EC-Council Review Board – 80 credits
• EC-Council Standard Setting – 60 credits

12- Higher Education Per Semester

If you are pursuing your higher education, some of the courses or lectures might be relevant to information security. EC-Council accepts information security-related higher education as ECE credits.

• Higher Education Per Quarter – 10 credits
• Higher Education Per Semester – 15 credits

Submit ECE Credits

After earning ECE credits, you need to submit your activities to the Aspen Portal. As an EC-Council certification holder, you should have a profile on the Aspen portal. If you forgot your credentials, email to EC-Council support team and retrieve your details.

You must submit 40 ECE credits every year, and in total 120 ECE credits for a three-year period. Once you complete the ECE credits earning process, the next step is completing the renewal process.

Renew EC-Council Certification

After completing the 120 ECE credits, if you were paying the annual membership fee of 80 USD, you can proceed to EC-Council certification renewal on the Aspen portal. After completing the renewal process, your new three-year period will start.

EC-Council Certification Renewal Fees

There are no additional EC-Council renewal fees other than the 80 USD annual membership fee. If you pay 80 USD every year, you will keep your EC-Council membership active, and you will be able to renew your EC-Council certification after completing 120 ECE credits.

EC-Council Certification Renewal Cost

The certification renewal cost and fee are different. EC-Council renewal cost covers the expenses paid to earn ECE credits as well. Depending on the activities you attended, the amount you need to pay for the courses, seminars, or conferences to earn ECE credits varies. Typically, conferences or seminars cost 1,000 USD per day. Besides, if you will be traveling to the event location, you will have traveling and accommodation costs as well.

However, if you attend an online EC-Council ECE course, the cost of the program will be around 250 USD.

Summary

EC-Council certification holders need to earn ECE credits every three years to renew their certification. Professionals look for renewal credits to renew their certifications. There are 12 different categories to earn ECE Credits and in total 25 different ECE earning activities.

Although there are 25 different ways to earn ECE credits, the most popular way is attending ECE Credit Courses. Professionals choose EC-Council renewal ECE credit courses mainly because there is no cap, affordable, and easy to earn ECE credits. Besides, ECE courses are less prone to audits as those activities are already known by the EC-Council.