'Many students take it because they know that security is important and it will help them get a job,' Lethbridge says.

The course includes training in security policies, mechanisms and awareness, physical security, user authentication, application security mechanisms, encryption, external and internal firewalls, security of operating systems and software, devices for security analysis and ethical issues in computer security.

Meanwhile, more students at the University of Waterloo are taking courses in writing secure software, says Urs Hengartner, assistant professor at the university's David R. Cheriton School of computer science.

A Network and Security course, for example, is being taught to 200 students enrolled this term, while Applied Cryptography has 130 students enrolled every year, Hengartner says.

'Students are looking for more security courses. [The Applied Cryprography instructor] told me that if we had a real security course, up to half of the students would probably take that course instead of the Applied Cryptography course,' Hengartner says.