About 80% of C-level executives and IT security professionals consider cyber-attacks as more harmful to their countries compared to physical attacks, according to a new survey by Cyber-Ark.

Cyber-Ark’s 7th annual Global Advanced Threat Landscape survey revealed that about 51% believe that their corporate network currently has a cyber-attacker, or has been in the earlier year.

The survey also reveals that the rising nation-based attacks on global critical infrastructure and organisations, together with sophisticated data violations including the NSA leak, have increased awareness of the threats posed by current cyber-attackers.

The research firm suggests organisations need to assume the attackers have already entered their network and target obtaining the access points to the critical data and assets that are desired by attackers.

About 61% of respondents considered that that government and legislative action would assist in protecting critical infrastructure against advanced threats.

Out of the overall surveyed, 57% of respondents believe their business puts too much faith in perimeter security, while 51% consider cyber-attackers has already entered their network or has been in the earlier year.

Cyber-Ark CMO John Worrall said people around the world are acutely aware of the global threat cyber-attacks represent.

"Cyber-attackers have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to disrupt national financial systems, cause harm to critical infrastructure and severely damage businesses and economies," Worrall said.

"To achieve their goals, outside attackers must steal the privileged credentials of an authorised user to gain the access necessary to meet their objectives.

"This level of threat requires a proactive approach to security that protects and monitors the access points to the critical data and assets that attackers are targeting."

64% of the survey respondents point that they are now managing privileged accounts as advanced threat security vulnerability, while 39% do not know how to identify the existence of privileged accounts.

The survey indicated that about 56% of respondents do not know the safety measures deployed by their cloud service providers to protect and monitor privileged accounts, while 25% believed they were better equipped to safeguard their personal data than their cloud provider.