By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly half of corporate security chiefs expect terrorists to launch a major strike through computer networks in the next 12 months but just over half said in a poll released on Thursday that the U.S. government was better prepared than on Sept. 11 to respond.

A total of 49 percent of 1,009 subscribers to the new CSO security magazine said they feared a major cyber attack in the coming year by a group like al Qaeda, blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks in the United states that killed more than 3,000 people.

The poll was carried out between July 19 and Aug. 1 by the Framingham, Massachusetts-based magazine, the first edition of which appears next month.

"When do you anticipate a major cyber attack by a terrorist organization (i.e. al Qaeda) will happen?" the magazine asked those who requested a subscription and said they met the qualification criteria, such as security-related purchase involvement for their companies.

Fifty-two percent of respondents said the U.S. government was more ready today than on Sept. 11 to respond to and recover from a cyber attack and 51 percent said his or her company was too.

But 95 percent of respondents said technology vendors needed to boost their products' security aspects. Only 7 percent said a group like al Qaeda would never launch a major cyber attack. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3.2 percentage points, said CSO, whose initials stand for Chief Security officer.

The FBI officer who heads the National Infrastructure Protection Center, Ron Dick, said he had no specific information about any impending cyber attack. But, in response to a query from Reuters, he added "we are concerned."

"The reason ... is that our potential enemies have the intent," said Dick, whose inter-agency center monitors threats to the physical and cyber-based systems deemed essential to keep the U.S. government and the U.S. economy running.

"The cyber tools for malicious attacks are broadly available and the vulnerabilities of our systems are myriad and well known," he added.

Dick said the government and the private sector were doing better than ever to coordinate efforts to detect, deter, warn of and mitigate any cyber attack against systems essential to the government and the economy.

PRESIDENTIAL BLUEPRINT

To help protect cyberspace, President Bush will roll out a blueprint next month calling on people from personal computer users to U.S. rocket scientists to do their share, including keeping anti-virus software updated, White House officials said on Wednesday.

The goal is to prevent such things as "denial-of-service" attacks in which hijacked computing power could be collected and used to attack electricity grids, telecommunications and other critical infrastructure.

"The average American doesn't necessarily recognize that he or she has a responsibility to protect their bit of cyberspace by using anti-virus software, firewalls, et cetera," said Tiffany Olson, deputy chief of staff of the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board.

The board was set up last October to coordinate the development of a national strategy to shore up the networks on which industrial societies like the United States depend. It is chaired by Richard Clarke, special adviser to the president for cyber security.

Clarke has been working on the president's strategy with as many as 25 executive branch agencies, including the Secret Service, the National Infrastructure Protection Center and the Commerce Department.

The heads of many of those agencies or their deputies will present Bush's new strategy to secure cyberspace on Sept. 18 at Stanford University, California, Olson said in a telephone interview.

The strategy includes recommendations to personal computer users and small businesses; big enterprises; and federal, state and local governments, plus industrial groups, she said. It would also address national initiatives and concerns, plus global aspects of cyber security, Olson said.