Forty-five percent of corporate chief security officers believe a "digital Pearl Harbor" will take place eventually, with 13 percent anticipating such an attack within a year, according to a survey by CSO Magazine.

The survey defined a "digital Pearl Harbor" as an attack that "plunge(s) America into chaos by using computer technology and the Internet to attack national critical infrastructures."

Derek Slater, Editor of CSO Magazine, a specialty magazine for security professionals, told United Press International he was surprised that so many respondents thought such an attack would happen.

Slater suggested that the threat drawing the most concern is what he termed a blend-in thread, where "a physical event is magnified by a nearly-simultaneous digital attack that would ... limit people's ability to get information."

More than half of responding CSOs characterized themselves as not very or not at all confident in the government's ability to successfully respond to cyber-emergencies; 77 percent of respondents suggested the government establish better communication with the private sector to better safeguard cyberspace, and nearly half suggested creating a high-level cyber-security position at the Department of Homeland Security, a development that did occur not long after the survey was taken.