What Is Security?

Security is the condition of being protected against harm, loss, or attack. When you feel secure, you have confidence that you, the people you care about, and the things you value are reasonably safe from threats. Achieving that condition is rarely automatic. It usually takes deliberate choices and measures that reduce the chance of something bad happening and limit the damage if it does.

Security applies to many parts of life, from locking your front door to guarding a nation’s borders, but the underlying idea is the same: identify what could go wrong, then make it harder and less rewarding for that to occur.

Questions you may have include:

• What does security actually mean?
• What are the main kinds of security?
• How is security different from safety?

The basic idea of security

Security deals with deliberate threats — situations where a person or group might try to take, damage, or harm something of value. A useful way to think about any security problem is in terms of three parts: the asset you want to protect, the threat that could act against it, and the vulnerability or weakness that the threat could exploit. The level of risk depends on how likely an attack is and how serious the consequences would be. Good security works on all three parts: it makes assets less exposed, discourages would-be attackers, and closes off weaknesses. The reasons people need protection in the first place are covered in the need for security, and the principles behind effective protection are explained in the theory of security.

Main kinds of security

Security is usually grouped by what is being protected:

• Personal security protects people from violence, injury, or threats to their well-being. Practical habits for staying safe are described in personal security.
• Property security protects physical things from theft or damage, including your home, your automobile, and business property.
• Information security protects data and communications from being stolen, altered, or destroyed.
• National security protects a country and its people from outside attack and internal threats.

Many situations combine several of these. A business, for example, must protect its employees, its buildings and equipment, and its records all at once, often using methods such as access control and biometric identification.

Security versus safety

Security and safety are related but not identical. Safety generally concerns protection from accidental harm, such as a fall, a fire caused by faulty wiring, or an unintentional injury. Security concerns protection from deliberate harm, such as theft, vandalism, or assault. The distinction matters because the two call for different responses: safety focuses on removing hazards and reducing mistakes, while security focuses on anticipating and discouraging the actions of people who mean to do harm.

Summary

Security is the condition of being protected from deliberate harm, loss, or attack. Every security problem involves an asset worth protecting, a possible threat, and a vulnerability that could be exploited, and the goal is to reduce the resulting risk. Security is commonly divided into personal, property, information, and national security, and it differs from safety in that it deals with intentional rather than accidental harm.