The Economist presents these charts for the following reason:
In the spring of 2011 the Pew Global Attitudes Survey asked thousands of people worldwide which country they thought was the leading economic power. Half of the Chinese polled reckoned that America remains number one, twice as many as said “China”. Americans are no longer sure: 43% of US respondents answered “China”; only 38% thought America was still the top dog. The answer depends on which measure you pick. (emphasis added)
The reason I like these charts is that they remind me of how many security practitioners think about "being secure." Managers likely often ask security staff "Are we secure?" The truth is there is no single number, so anyone selling you a "risk" number is wasting your time (and probably your money). However, it would be much more useful to display a chart like that created by the Economist. The security staff could choose a dozen or more simple metrics to paint a picture, and let the viewer interpret the answer using his or her own emphasis and bias.
Another reason I like the Economist chart is that the magazine built it using specified assumptions of future activity, listed in the article. If you disagree with these assumptions you can visit the second link I posted to devise your own charts. Although not shown here, what would be even more useful is showing these charts as a time series, with snapshots for January, then February, and so on. This "small multiples" approach (promoted by Tufte) capitalizes on the skill of the human eye and brain to observe and observe differences in similar objects.
If you had to pick a dozen or so indicators of security for a chart, what would you depict? The two I consider non-negotiable are 1) incidents per unit time and 2) time to containment for incidents.
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