The world’s leading security and health risk services company, International SOS, is today releasing its annual interactive Risk Map 2025. As global security and health risks continue to evolve, the 2025 Map provides organisations with underlying medical and security risk ratings reflecting the impact of disruptive events such as conflict, infectious diseases and impacts of extreme weather events.
International SOS has also enhanced its Security and Medical Risk Ratings service for clients. In addition to the established country and sub-national Risk Ratings, clients can now access detailed risk information on around 1,000 cities and some of the key Risk Factors that drive the Ratings. Managers can see the latest data on variables such as conflict, crime, infrastructure, and natural disasters, as well as access to healthcare, health threats, and air pollution.
Sally Llewellyn, Global Security Director at International SOS, explains: “Our increasingly complex world is reflected in the Risk Map. We haven’t decreased security risk ratings for any country this year. Geopolitical tensions have been the most prominent trigger, with changes to risk ratings for locations such as Sudan and Lebanon, where the intensity and expansion of conflict now impact more population centres and have pushed the overall risk rating up. International SOS continues to support organisations operating in these locations with verified information and advice on how such risks will affect their workforce and evacuations where needed.”
Sudan, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, and Myanmar have all undergone multiple risk rating reviews and expansions of high or extreme-risk zones throughout 2024 as a result of conflict. Other increases in security risk ratings include New Caledonia increasing from low to medium, based on an assessment of the longer-term impact of social unrest, economic decline, and related crime. Crime trends and increased social unrest have resulted in changes to specific countries or regions in South Africa, Mexico and Kenya. Also, reductions in militancy have resulted in changes in risk ratings in parts of the Philippines, Thailand and Laos.”
Dr Katherine O’Reilly, Regional Medical Director at International SOS, comments: “Two notable changes in medical risk this year are Bolivia, from medium to high, and Libya, from extreme to high. Changes to medical risks are based on factors including the standard and access to healthcare facilities, availability of medicines and the prevalence of infections and diseases. Using data-driven tools is critical for organisations to maintain their Duty of Care responsibilities and protect their workforce, whether their employees are travelling or working domestically.”
Along with the Risk Map 2025, International SOS recently released its 2025 Risk Outlook report, revealing essential insights into the mounting challenges for organisational and workforce resilience, alongside risk predictions for the forthcoming year. The research uncovers a Fragmenting World with 65% of the surveyed senior risk professionals perceiving that risks have increased over the past year, and 69% predict significant impacts from geopolitical challenges alone in 2025. This comes as 78% predict that burnout and stress are likely to have a major impact on businesses in the year ahead.
Even in the ongoing permacrisis environment, the new research highlights that some of the most significant risks are those for which respondents said they were least prepared, including conflict, geopolitical tensions, and protests.
