This makes the survey results nothing short of alarming.

The problem is made worse, Ingram said, because of a serious shortage of IT security skill sets available in Australia.

Enterprise workers are extremely dissatisified with the level of qualifications and training for IT security staff, he said. "Only a small percentage of respondents believe they are managing security practices well," Ingram said.

"The use of security standards also has a low adoption in Australia."

The good news from the survey is that Australia has seen the lowest level of Internet-based attacks in four years with only 22 percent of survey respondents reporting an electronic attack that "harmed the confidentiality, integrity or availability of network data or systems". The figure was 35 percent in 2005.