Computerworld — A survey released Tuesday by Lumension Security Inc. highlighted growing fears among federal IT security officials of cyberattacks being launched against critical U.S. infrastructure targets by foreign adversaries in the near future.

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Of about 200 IT security managers in civilian and noncivilian federal agencies surveyed, 61% said there was a "high" threat of an attack being launched by a foreign nation sometime in the next year.

About 33% of the respondents said their networks had experienced cyberattacks from overseas groups and terrorist organizations in the past year. The respondents included IT security officials at the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies

At the same time, more than four out of 10 respondents in the Lumension survey said that they believe the U.S. government's ability to defend against the attacks is "poor" to "fair" at best.

About half said that they expect only minor policy changes to result from the recent appointment of Howard Schmidt as the new federal cybersecurity coordinator, while more than 40% admitted to spending very little time during the past year working on the Comprehensive National Cyber Security Initiative.

The CNCI is a multibillion-dollar effort that was launched during the Bush Administration to bolster the federal government's ability to detect and block cyberthreats.

The results underscore just how little the government has revealed about the scope of the cyber challenges it is facing, said Matt Mosher, vice president of sales at Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Lumension.

The fact that more than 30% of federal agencies and departments that deal with national security, including defense, foreign policy and homeland security, appear to have been attacked over the past year is revealing, Mosher said.

Equally significant is the relatively scant attention that apparently is being paid to key initiatives such as the CNCI, he said. "The government hasn't been doing a lot of public talking about the threat from foreign nations and the fact that a lot of it is already happening," he said.

Though there is growing awareness within the security industry about the massive scope of the problem, "the average public" has little to no awareness of the seriousness of the issue, he said.

"You would think there would be some action and some effort spent on these initiatives," given the current threat climate, he said. According to Mosher, respondents in the Lumension survey identified compliance-related issues, lack of resources and technology integration challenges as some of the biggest obstacles to implementing an effective cybersecurity strategy.

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