2021 Unisys Security Index

Letter from Andrew Whelan, Vice President Client Management, Unisys Asia Pacific

When the Unisys Security Index™ launched in 2007, to gain an understanding of how people around the globe felt about a wide range of security issues, spanning financial, internet, personal and national security, who could have predicted how much the world would change in the next decade and a half?

The world looks very different to how it did at the time of the first Unisys Security Index in 2007. Smartphones had just entered the market, social media was in its infancy, much of our online activity was still done on a desktop computer, we were in the midst of the global financial crisis, the 9/11 and London bombing terror attacks were still raw, and while some regions were familiar pandemics such as SARS, most of us would not have considered one on a global scale. Since then we have dealt with earthquakes, bushfires and local terror attacks.

In 2021 we take the chance to pause and reflect on the role technology plays in our lives, how that has evolved since the first Index, and what our current attitudes towards security might reveal about our future.

To this end, we’ve asked tech commentator and futurist Mark Pesce to examine the data from the 2021 Unisys Security Index for Australia and New Zealand, reflecting on where we’ve come from, and where we might be heading post-COVID.

Each iteration of the Unisys Security Index tracks consumer sentiment around their personal, financial, national and internet security, revealing how our priorities and concerns change over time. Each year we also deep-dive into particular topical issues that impact how we go about our personal and work lives. In this study, security is not about bits and bytes. Instead we approach security from its widest sense: being free from danger or threat.

For citizens of Australia and New Zealand, the pandemic has fundamentally changed the way most of us live and work; and escalated the risks we face online. With such rapid change in our lives and our growing reliance on the digital world, this year we’ve chosen to deep-dive into two areas that impact our work and home life today:

1. With the trend for more of us to work remotely, how do employees feel about being monitored while we work from home?
2. Where does responsibility lie to protect against cyber security threats when working from home, and people up to the task?

The research findings and Mark’s observations show we’ll need more than just great technology to face the future, we’ll need transparency, trust and empathy in equal measures.