The study, which took in around 300 responses during April from IT professionals mainly in the enterprise segment of the market, found that 56% believe the commercial software flaws could allow hackers to exploit these software vulnerabilities.
According to Fortify Software, the security software assurance specialist, by testing the security of their IT platforms, the respondents are trying to build security into their software installations.
The firm says that around half of the IT security professionals also admitted to hacking their own systems, with 73% of these respondents doing so to test the strength of their own network's defenses, 13% for fun or out of curiosity, and 3% are targeting their efforts at the competition.
Researchers also found that 31% of these surveyed admitted to being victims of hacking, with the majority citing the application layer as the hackers' main target.