Gauging the mood of the country has always been a fickle exercise. Pollsters use survey questions that are all-too-often slanted to get the desired response. Media types love exit polls during election time to crown the winning politician with less than one percent of the vote tallied so they can scoop the rival network. Social pundits prefer to use the weekend movie box office tally or television ratings as their thermometer of civic psyches. Pithy comedy smash — good karma. Heavy-handed docu-drama tops the charts — recession and biblical floods on tap.
None of us really make an effort to rank our level of security or social concerns unless someone asks. Even then our responses are certainly influenced by our current state of affairs and that of our surroundings. Tim Kelleher, vice president of enterprise security for Unisys, understands the world does not operate in a vacuum. But when the company for which you work has a global footprint, having the ability to recognize socio-economic trends that could affect both the security and bottom line of the business is important.
So for the second consecutive year, Unisys has released its Global Security Index — where it statistically tracked the measure of concern in key areas of security. These areas were national security, which included security and epidemics; financial security to include bank card fraud and the ability to meet financial obligations; internet security which tracked spam, virus concerns and online financial transactions; and finally personal security dealing with physical risk and identity theft. The Unisys research was based on a March 2008 telephone survey of 1,008 people aged 18 and over.
Among the other countries or regions surveyed by Unisys besides the United States were Hong Kong and Singapore, Brazil, Germany, Spain, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, France and Australia.
“This is our second survey, so it is really our first opportunity to begin tracking some trends. When it comes to Americans, we are right in the middle regarding our level of concern,” says Kelleher, who saw the United States score 151 on the “security-concern meter” out of a possible 300 points. “It is interesting to see a significant shift within some of the sub-questions asked Americans regarding national security (15-percent spike in concern compared to 2007) and epidemics (20-percent concern increase).”
A heightened perception of the terrorist threat outside the United States is one statistical result that does not hold true according to the Unisys survey. Whether it is a reflection of the war in Iraq, constant media attention or the impending presidential elections, Americans are more concerned about national security than most of the European countries. Kelleher also speculates that the increase in epidemics concern might be related to an “unusually brutal” flu season.
Based on a 130 point-average for the global index categories, Americans were above the norm in three of the four categories — national security (167 points), personal security (154 points) and financial security (152 points), with the internet security index coming in at 129 points. According to the survey, security issues that rank as “extremely or very concerned” for Americans include national security as it relates to the war on terror (61 percent), credit card fraud (64 percent), unauthorized access or use of personal information (70 percent), and computer security (42 percent).
“In general we are a pretty rational group of people. We don’t overreact, but instead have a healthy level of concern regarding all the issues in the survey,” Kelleher says. “The more data you have, the better informed you are on what’s going on in people’s heads in both the private and public sectors. It is all about tracking and understanding trends so you can detect issues before they become problems.”
A copy of the Unisys survey can be obtained by visiting http://unisyssecurityindex.com/us.
If you have any questions or comments for Steve Lasky regarding this or any other security industry-related issue, please e-mail him at [email protected].
Steve Lasky | Editorial Director, Editor-in-Chief/Security Technology Executive
Steve Lasky is Editorial Director of the Endeavor Business Media Security Group, which includes SecurityInfoWatch.com, as well as Security Business, Security Technology Executive, and Locksmith Ledger magazines. He is also the host of the SecurityDNA podcast series. Reach him at [email protected].
