Students will learn how to overcome the most sophisticated IT security systems, with a view to advising companies on how best to protect their systems and their customers.

Nevertheless, the university accepts the skills being taught on the four-year course would be invaluable to criminals and terrorists.

“That is a concern that has been expressed,” said an Abertay spokesman. “However, the students will be thoroughly vetted to make sure we are not recruiting any known criminals.

“In addition, they will not be introduced to hacking skills from day one, but gradually over the length of the course.

“There will be two years or so during which we can keep a very close eye on them to see what type of people they are.”

After graduation, the students are unlikely to have to look too hard for a job, the spokesman went on.

“We have done some research which shows there is a rapidly growing marketplace in what the industry calls penetration testing, and is more usually known as ethical hacking,” he explained.

“There are cases where companies and organisations are required to have this as a condition for insurance.

“As a result, there is a very high demand and the right people can command salaries of £45,000 upwards.”

The course is being led by tutor Colin McLean, the only academic in the country with an ethical hacking qualification.

Explaining the need for hacking skills to be passed on, he said, “These days there’s such a large reliance on computers for most aspects of a company’s work, and legislation means reasonable steps have to be taken to make sure data is secure.

“Specialist companies are employed to go in and test computers for any kind of security flaw and we are looking to prepare undergraduates for jobs in that area.”

Mr McLean said the stringent selection process would play the most important part in preventing hacking skills being taught to students prepared to use them illegally.

Despite the high cost of computer-based crime —up to £270,000 an hour — many companies fail to tell the police about it because they do not want adverse publicity, according to a report today.

Cyber crime is one of the fastest growing problems for businesses, but many firms are not aware of how badly they could be hit, risk consultants Protiviti said.

The company said there had been a 66% increase in the number of computer-related crime cases it had dealt with in the first three months of the year compared with the same period in 2005.

Firms were often not aware of the scale of the problem because they could not visualise the crime or were not so afraid of criminals they could not see, it was suggested.

Sean Holohan of Protiviti said, “Through greater connectivity and technological advances, e-crime is growing at a rapid rate and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

“However, the factors behind this also make it easier to identify the electronic ‘fingerprints’ of the criminals.”

Computer crimes included fraudulently mis-stating accounts by abusing spreadsheets and other financial related electronic information, defrauding company payroll systems to create fictitious staff to steal money from the company or creating false certifications and other official documents.