How scared should you be about security statistics

One vendor, , which makes e-mail security products, discounts the importance of security statistics that pop up in media reports.

"An organization should be focused far more on their own internal metrics for determining their security posture, rather than on outside statistics," says Adam O'Donnell, director of emerging technologies at Cloudmark.

However, Unisys, a systems integrator, begs to differ.

Unisys over the last two years has undertaken a semi-annual of about 14,000 individuals in 13 countries around the world, asking them eight questions about their perception of personal, financial and national safety online.

For businesses concerned about what consumers are thinking, the results are one factor to consider, Unisys contends, pointing to the value of statistics.