FOR a regional competition last spring, eight students from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, spent six months of Saturdays practicing how to defend a typical business computer network from attacks. Then, over two grueling days, they outscored teams from five other schools at blocking worms and other efforts to disrupt their e-mail and Internet systems.

For the six seniors in the group, all in computer information systems, the victory was even sweeter. Boeing, the giant aerospace and military company, offered them jobs.

Boeing’s decision to snap up all the graduates on the team shows how urgent the demand for computer-security experts has become, and helps explain why colleges are scrambling to add courses and specialized degrees in the once-exotic field.

In fact, as attacks on vital computer systems proliferate, surveys show a serious shortage of talent to combat them. Banks, military contractors and software companies, along with federal agencies, are looking for “cyber ninjas” to fend off a sophisticated array of hackers, from criminals stealing credit card numbers to potential military adversaries.