Want to learn the latest ways to cripple your employer's network? New Horizons has launched an Online Live instructor-led training course that's open to individuals around the world who want to learn the newest hacking techniques. This course isn't aimed at encouraging students to do anything illegal, it's actually aimed at ethical hackers who want to create countermeasures that will prevent or contain real hacker attacks.

The online course involves 10 three-hour classes that are scheduled to run every other day, and prepares students for the Internet Council of E-Commerce Consultants (EC-Council) Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) certification.

Student prerequisites include a foundational knowledge of networking technologies, such as how routers talk and the different networking protocols, says Bobby Lee, an Online Live instructor for New Horizons. At the company's pilot course in March, students ranged from IT consultants to network administrators at Fortune 500 companies, some with between 6 and 12-plus years of networking experience.

Some observers have criticized ethical hacking courses as legitimizing hacking and providing wide audiences with knowledge of how to break into networks. Lee says students and instructors work within a code of honor.

"Definitely, someone can fall into the dark side. If someone has the intention to do bad stuff, it is possible," Lee says. "But even before people touch the machines, we talk about hacking cases and the law and prosecution. We present the facts for you to make your own decision."

Students also have to sign a waiver to say they will not use their new skills for illegal or malicious attacks. Students couldn't, for example, go back to work after a class and test a technique that they had just learned to compromise their corporate network and suggest it is class homework.

According to New Horizons, students are given "a mastery" of hacking tools and security systems as well as knowledge of how to hack via Windows 2000 and Linux.

Currently there are 4,000 EC-Council Certified Ethical Hackers, with an average of 150 IT professionals becoming accredited each month, according to New Horizons.

I'd be interested to hear your views about ethical hacking courses. Are they useful in the fight to preserve security or at risk of creating a new crop of malicious hackers? E-mail me your thoughts at lleung@nww.com .

Jon Brodkin is senior writer at Network World.