Students at a Canberra university will form the future of a cyber security militia capable of defending national infrastructure and studying tactics of hacker armies in North Korea and Iran.
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UNSW Canberra professor Greg Austin, who has previously warned of glaring holes in Australia's cyber security policy, said many of his students were Australian Defence Force personnel and extremely capable.
"Australia is at a historic choice point when it comes to cyber defence," he said. "We will have to build a cyber militia soon, and we need research and debate now on what that looks like.
"We have found the students have a high level of capability and can work together to develop advanced policy ideas and we want to put them to the test."
He said students would study "the hacker armies of Iran and North Korea, the tactics of Anonymous and WikiLeaks, and the development of cyber reserve forces in the UK, USA, Israel and Estonia".
Professor Austin, an executive with the Australian Centre for Cyber Security, said the coursework would produce graduates capable of working with the government of defence to protect infrastructure.
"We need to think about a new form of organisation that is not a traditional part of the defence force, but a halfway point between civilian life and the army reserve."
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull launched a new $230 million strategy to bolster cyber security in April with an acknowledgement Australia was prepared to take offensive action to protect the national interest.
The funding boost came after $400 million was allocated for staff with hacking experience at the Australian Signals Directorate and the announcement of 800 new intelligence and cyber roles within the Department of Defence.
"The Defence White Paper and the national cyber security strategy foreshadowed great leaps in technological advancement, but we are not quite hitting the mark when it comes to protecting our critical infrastructure or fighting cybercrime."
In the past six months, the computer system at the Bureau of Meteorology experienced a "massive breach", believed to have originated in China, and it was reported that 97 federal agencies were told to encrypt more data amid "hundreds" of attempted intrusions a month.
Professor Austin said a national cyber security college was "urgently needed" and hoped his coursework would stimulate a conversation about a national curriculum.
But he has warned many Australians do not understand the risks cybercrime posed and, as a result, are unlikely to support large-scale investments by the government.
