So, let us start this off by grabbing your good old Merriam-Webster dictionary off the shelf. You will most likely want to blow the dust off a little and wipe the cobwebs off. You may even see that one drool spot that you left during a long cram session for your finals and you fell asleep while studying all those many years ago. Now we just need to remember how to even use this wonderful book.

What is Security

Now that the hard part is over we can start using this fantastic book. We are going to look up our first word in our subject which is security. You will notice that in Merriam-Webster dictionary security “is the quality or state of being secure. Such as freedom from danger, freedom from fear or anxiety and freedom from the prospect of being laid off”. If you sum this all up then security is the state of being secure. Now let us break this down even more in the Merriam-Webster dictionary and look at the word secure. You will notice that secure “is free from danger”.

So, let’s dive just a little bit more into our word security and check out what danger means. If we look at our Merriam-Webster dictionary at the word danger you will see that danger “is the exposure or liability to injury, pain, harm, or loss” So, this tells us that our word security is the state of protecting us from injury, pain, harm, or loss. That to me is very powerful.

What is Perception

The next word that we are going to look at is perception. In Merriam-Webster dictionary, perception is a result of perceiving. This breaks down even further with perceiving pointing to perceive. If we keep reading the Merriam-Webster dictionary it reads that perceive is to attain awareness or understanding. Now, this all tells us that perception is the result to attain awareness or understanding.

Now let’s look at our topic of Security Perception. From what we have learned then security perception is the state to attain awareness or understanding to protect us from injury, pain, harm, or loss.

Security Perception

Now just like everything else in this world your security perception can and most likely will change. As we have defined your security perception is your awareness and understanding to protect yourself from injury, pain, harm, or loss. So if your awareness or understanding of these things changes then your security perception will change as well.

Now, what do I mean by these statements? Well, it is very easy to explain by using an example. Let’s say you have been living in what you have thought for a long time in a safe neighborhood. Your security perception of keeping you and your home safe is simply by closing your door when you leave your house. Why do you do this action? Well, it is simply because your awareness and understanding of the location that you live is safe, and to protect your home and the valuables in your home will be safe if you only shut your front door when you leave. You never felt the need to lock the door because your environment and awareness deems you and your home safe by only closing your door.

Now let us say that you left your home for the weekend and only closed your door to your home. When you get back home you see an alarm company at your neighbors and when you walk to your door your neighbor stops you. Your neighbor simply asked you “if you heard about the Robertsons down the road. Their house was broken into over the weekend and the people stole almost all their electronics.” This may make you think more in-depth about your security perception. The reason is that your environment has changed and your understanding of your home security is now questioned. This may make you start locking your door when you leave or even by adding a security system to your home to make sure it is secure.

As you can see above your security perception has changed with the knowledge of a break-in in your neighborhood. You may feel that your awareness or understanding to protects you from possible harm if somebody breaks into your home and the possibility of losing valuables.

So this is something that I want to express with the writing of this entry. You need to understand your personal security perception so you can make sure that you are safe from possible harm or loss. This can go from physical security all the way up to IT security. You need to make sure that you are protecting yourself and your loved ones at all times no matter what you are doing in your life.