The top three tail risks for global institutional asset owners are an unexpected liquidity crunch, a military conflict in the Asia-Pacific region and a major cyberattack, according to a new survey conducted by PGIM, the money management subsidiary of Prudential Financial.

The survey of 400 senior investment officials at asset owners representing more than $12 trillion in assets shows the greatest common level of concern is a liquidity crunch in capital markets resulting in a market crash, according to a report of survey results on PGIM’s website. Those are followed by a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea, and a lengthy cyberattack disabling a major financial platform or government agency.

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For the survey, respondents evaluated 19 possible tails risks according to likelihood, severity and preparedness. It was conducted in June and July by CoreData Research among senior investment officials at institutional asset owners in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Australia, China and Japan.

“Too often investors are surprised by things that in retrospect were staring them in the face,” said Shehriyar Antia, head of thematic research for PGIM, in a news release Thursday announcing the release of the survey report. “The pandemic, the global financial crisis, the dot-com bubble — these events were all foreseeable to different degrees. Financial institutions must either gameplan for the unexpected, or expect to be blindsided.”

According to the survey report, 41% of respondents say a primary tail-risk monitoring challenge is the inability to act quickly when risks are identified. Multiple answers were accepted and the next-highest responses were 36% each saying they feared failure to detect early warning signs of risks, and the failure to predict the materialization of unknown risks, or “black swans.”

By region, U.S.-based respondents gave more weight to economic and inflation-related risks, specifically expressing the greatest level of concern that the 10-year Treasury yield will reach double digits. For U.K.-based respondents, the greatest level of concern was a eurozone economy defaulting on its debt; in Japan, a global economic slowdown forcing central banks to bring interest rates back to zero; in Germany, the China real estate bubble popping and creating a global recession; in China, another global pandemic; and in Australia, the U.S. and China banning bilateral trade.

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