The fifth annual global study from Cyber-Ark entitled `Trust, Security and Passwords' found that 57% of global C-level executives agree that in the next one-to-three years, external threats such as cyber-criminals will become a greater security risk than insider threats.
In addition to expanding awareness about the risks associated with cyber espionage or advanced persistent threat (APT)-type attacks, respondents said that internal threats still represent a security challenge for many organisations today.
The survey, which took in responses from IT staff and C-level professionals across the US and EMEA region, found that almost one in five of C-level respondents admitted that cases of insider sabotage had occurred at their workplace.
In addition, 16% believe that competitors may have received highly sensitive information or intellectual property - including customer lists, product information and marketing plans from sources within their own organisation.
Commenting on the result, Adam Bosnian, Cyber-Ark's executive vice president, said that increased awareness that attack vectors can and do originate from both external and internal sources can be attributed in large part to the spectacular external-born breaches that drew headlines in the past year.
"Regardless of the attack vector, the targets inside an enterprise remain the same - highly sensitive intellectual, financial and customer information", he said.
"Privileged accounts are the key tool that external attackers and insiders leverage to access and exfiltrate an organisation's sensitive information", he added.
"Security teams need to start with improving the protection of these key internal targets - not simply building bigger walls around the enterprise."