A recently released survey conducted by PatchLink indicates that 54 percent of IT managers' identify zero-day vulnerabilities as their major concern. The survey, which relied on answers by 250 CIOs, CSOs, IT managers and network administrators from Europe, Asia and North America, also showed that IT managers still believe that hackers and malware still pose a serious challenge.

The annual survey revealed that organizations have gotten much better at responding to security vulnerabilities, with 29 percent deploying critical updates to their systems within two hours. This figure is more than double last-years' 14 percent response. The improvement is similar for an eight-hour response. Seventy percent of respondents said they have critical updates installed within eight hours of receipt, up from 39 percent last year.

The survey showed a trend toward increased vigilance, with half of respondents reporting that they used ten or more agents to perform security or operational tasks. Two-thirds of respondents said they spent an hour or more each day monitoring security on their networks.

According to PatchLink CEO Patrick Clawson, the results show the effectiveness of sound vulnerability management approaches, as well as a need for continuous security protection and a more unified approach to monitoring and deployment of security related patches.