It varies on the field of security. I'm weary of some things, others I know there isn't much I can do besides methods that don't always work, and there's other things that I know are basically just security theater which have rare to nil chance to actually happening. I still feel the changes to airport security are entirely security theater as their is no solid evidence that it has prevented anything, and tries to legitimatize these overzealous methods to provide a false sense of security for some.
Like the old movies which told people to get under tables, they were stocking up on gas masks, and building fallout shelters for possible nuclear attack. I don't honestly know the real possibly of it in the past as I wasn't even born yet, however there definitely was mis-information along with fear mongering going on.
If there's some irrational fear there's usually somebody selling something to provide some feeling of security even if it's nothing more than fleecing the suckers.