IT professionals are being offered fast-track training in hacking skills as a means to combat cyber-attacks.

Accelerated learning company The Training Camp has introduced a five-day Certified Ethical Hacker course detailing the tools and techniques used to target corporate networks.

In the past few years, so-called ethical hacking has become an increasingly popular method of detecting vulnerabilities in systems and networks. Many companies pay high fees for penetration testing services.

Robert Chapman, co-founder of The Training Camp, said: "This is about giving people inside your organisation the skills to carry out penetration testing on your behalf without having to hire an external consultancy."

The course is based on that of US training developer EC-Council.

The Training Camp's US arm has been offering a fast-track version for around four months and the company is running its first UK-based course early next month.

"We're getting 20 to 30 enquiries a day. The first course is almost booked out and the second is already half full," said Chapman.

"The type of people showing an interest are networking professionals, IT professionals and some decision makers, although you do need to have a working knowledge of TCP/IP, Linux and Windows environments."

Students must sign a legal document declaring that they will not use the skills they learn for malicious purposes.

"Most of our clients are corporates. People paying thousands of pounds on training are unlikely to be script kiddies or wannabe criminals," said Chapman.

He added that it was important for companies to understand the methods being used against them in order to improve security.

"You might follow to the letter what Microsoft and Cisco say about protecting your network, but new holes are appearing all the time," warned Chapman.

"Unless you put yourself in the shoes of those who are after you, and understand the tools they use and the way they think, you cannot be confident that your systems are adequately protected."