Cyber Security Course Fees in India (2026): Free to IIT, Compared

Ethical hacking course fees and diplomas (₹21,240 to about ₹1.1 lakh)

* From Craw's own fee articles; the course pages publish no fee. ICSS teaches online or in Kolkata and Bengaluru, Craw in Delhi (Saket, Laxmi Nagar) or online.

Short ethical hacking courses run about 40 hours: ICSS charges ₹18,000 plus GST, Intellipaat ₹59,052 for a CEH v13 course. The one-year diplomas from private institutes in Delhi, Kolkata and Bengaluru list at ₹70,000 to ₹92,000, with GST often on top, and teach a broad syllabus over many months at a few classes a week. They are classroom-first, which suits someone who needs a timetable, and they rarely include a certification exam: none of the ICSS or Craw diplomas mentions an exam voucher.

Online programmes with an IIT, IIIT or university certificate (₹85,044 to ₹2,32,460)

These are live online programmes run by an edtech company, with a certificate from an institute. Read the partner carefully. Simplilearn's certificate comes from IIIT Bangalore. upGrad's IIT Delhi programme is certified by IIT Delhi's Continuing Education Programme, which issues the fee receipts. Intellipaat's are certified by iHUB DivyaSampark, IIT Roorkee's technology innovation hub, which is not the same as an IIT Roorkee degree. Two of them bundle the CEH exam voucher: Simplilearn's ₹1,99,999 programme and Intellipaat's ₹1,50,024 one. Most ask for a degree. The same edtech-plus-institute model runs through coding courses, which we compared in upGrad vs Great Learning vs AlmaBetter vs AccioJob. If AI is the bigger draw than security, see the top AI courses in India.

C-DAC and IIT programmes (₹99,297 to ₹4,91,800)

C-DAC's PG certificate programmes are the outlier: government-run, full time for 24 weeks, six days a week at most centres, at ₹99,000 plus GST, with admission through the C-CAT entrance exam. C-DAC has renamed its PG diplomas as PG certificate programmes, so PG-DITISS is now PGCP-ITISS. IIT Kanpur's online PG Diploma is the most expensive option here at ₹4,91,800, and its applications for the September 2026 batch have closed. IIT Kanpur's older eMasters in Cyber Security, at ₹8,00,000 for one-year completion, no longer takes admissions.

CEH certification cost in India

CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker) from EC-Council is the certification most ethical hacking courses in India are built around, and what it costs depends on where you buy the voucher.

EC-Council does not set a price for CEH training; its accredited partners do. The practical point is the gap between the store and the partners: ₹90,000 for a voucher at the store, ₹30,000 through Intellipaat. Before you pay the store price, ask an accredited training centre what it charges for the voucher alone. And read what you are buying: Intellipaat's CEH course page says the exam vouchers are "provided" and, in its FAQ, that the voucher costs ₹30,000 extra. Ask which is true, in writing.

Cyber security course duration and fees

Duration predicts very little about price. Six months costs anything from ₹64,900 (Craw, with GST) to ₹1,65,200 (upGrad with IIT Delhi). Can you learn cyber security in four months? You can finish a foundation: Cisco's 120-hour path at eight hours a week takes about 15 weeks. A first job usually needs more than that, which is what the 6 to 12 month courses and a certification exam are for.

What an hour of teaching costs

Duration hides how much teaching you get. These seven programmes publish their teaching hours, so we divided the fee by the hours.

An hour of teaching costs 16 times more on IIT Delhi's online certificate than in C-DAC's classroom. The hours are not identical: a C-DAC hour is part of a full-time classroom cohort, an IIT Delhi hour is a faculty-led live session that ends in an IIT Delhi certificate. But most of that sixteenfold gap is the name on the certificate. Decide whether the name is worth it to the employers you want, and pay for it on purpose rather than by accident. Simplilearn and Great Learning do not publish live hours, so they are not in this table; ask them for the number. We apply a similar lens, cost per month of teaching, in our study of coding bootcamp fees in India.

Which cyber security course can you join after 12th?

• Open to anyone: Cisco's free courses and Google's certificate, both pitched at beginners, and NPTEL's course, which anyone can follow free although it is pitched at postgraduate level. The ISC2 CC exam needs no work experience. CompTIA recommends, but does not require, Network+ and two years of experience before Security+.
• Needs a degree: Intellipaat (a bachelor's in any field), Simplilearn (a bachelor's with 50%, and it prefers two years of work experience), upGrad with IIT Delhi (a bachelor's or master's with 50% and some programming; the page says it is not for beginners), C-DAC (a BE or BTech in IT, CS, electronics and related branches, MCA, an MSc or MS in CS, IT or electronics, or a PG degree in mathematics or statistics, with 55%), and IIT Kanpur (a four-year bachelor's or a PG degree in engineering, science or allied areas with 55%, through GATE or IIT Kanpur's own entrance test).
• CEH: official training, or two years in an information security role.
• Private diplomas: ICSS, Craw and Jetking sell their diplomas to beginners. Ask each, in writing, whether 12th pass is enough.

If you are weighing a short course against a full degree, bootcamp versus degree in India sets out what each one is and is not.

Hidden costs to budget for

• GST at 18% on every fee quoted "plus GST": ICSS, Craw, upGrad, C-DAC and Great Learning. Simplilearn's fee includes taxes.
• The exam voucher. Most courses train you for CEH or Security+ without paying for the exam. CEH is ₹30,000 to ₹1.14 lakh depending on where you buy it; Security+ is ₹29,134.
• Application and entrance fees. ₹1,550 for C-DAC's C-CAT, ₹5,000 (non-refundable) to apply to IIT Kanpur,
  00 for CEH's self-study eligibility.
• Taking longer than planned. IIT Kanpur charges ₹25,000 per trimester and ₹5,000 for each inactive trimester, so a two-year finish costs more than a one-year one.
• Retakes and renewals. A CEH retake voucher through an Indian training centre is

What "placement" means on these pages

Several of these courses advertise placement, and the words are doing different jobs. Craw's one-year diploma page promises "100% Placement Assistance"; its brochure limits that to "One time job Assistance/ Placement". Jetking's landing page claims a "100% placement guarantee" for a diploma whose fee it does not publish. Intellipaat's executive programme offers "3 Guaranteed Job Interviews" after you clear its placement readiness test. C-DAC says its fee covers placement assistance and runs common campus placements by region. Before you pay for placement, ask how many interviews you are guaranteed, what happens if you are not placed, and what the refund terms are, all in writing. Pay-after-placement terms are a different model again; our guide to pay after placement shows what they cost at each salary band.

Is a cyber security course worth the fee?

Start with what the first job pays. EICTA, an IIT Kanpur-linked training consortium that also sells cyber security courses, puts freshers without a certification at ₹4 to ₹5 LPA in their first role, and freshers with CompTIA Security+ or CEH at ₹6 to ₹8 LPA. On those figures, the certification exam may matter more at entry level than the name on a course certificate, and a ₹1 lakh course pays for itself in about three months of a ₹4 LPA salary, if it gets you the job.

That makes the cheapest sensible plan for a fresher a free foundation, then a course with real teaching hours, then a certification exam. For a working IT professional moving into security, a live weekend programme with the CEH voucher bundled is worth the premium only if you would have bought the voucher anyway.

How to choose a price band

Before paying anyone, get three things in an email: the all-inclusive invoice amount, whether the exam voucher is included, and the refund window. You can compare cyber security batches, formats and start dates across institutes in the full course listing, or open every institute we list to see each one's programmes together. If you are weighing security against software development, see coding bootcamp fees in India and whether a coding bootcamp is worth it, and if the bootcamp format is new to you, start with what a bootcamp actually is.

Sources and how we checked

Every fee was read off the provider's own page or document on 25 October 2026, from an Indian connection, so rupee prices are what an Indian visitor sees. Several of these pages load their fee after the page opens, so we read them in a browser rather than from the raw page. Where a provider quotes in dollars, we convert at about ₹95, the rate implied by CompTIA's India price (₹29,134 for $307). Where a page contradicts itself, we say so rather than choosing. Fees change by batch; confirm the amount in writing before paying.

1. Cisco Networking Academy: Junior Cybersecurity Analyst career path and Introduction to Cybersecurity (free, 120 and 6 hours)
2. NPTEL: Cyber Security and Privacy, IIT Madras (free to learn, ₹1,000 exam, 12 weeks)
3. Grow with Google India: Cybersecurity Certificate (