The paper is devoted to the analysis of world risk society in the social philosophy of Ulrich Beck. Actually her philosophy can be considered the political philosophy and thus it focuses on historical perception of risk society and revealing of its new features in the modern era. The article considers innovations that distinguish the world society of risk from the previous society of modern and postmodern risk: the difference between risk and catastrophe, risk and cultural judgments about risk. From the difference between risk and catastrophe, there is a need for protective action. This is of particular importance for the state, which is forced to engage in forecasting and preventing risks, since the safety of citizens is a primary task of the state. Typology of different «logic» of global risks allows to identify new phenomena of terrorism and compare it with environmental and economic risks. The logic of risk suggests its irony, which is the need to anticipate unpredictable. The logic of uniqueness gives way to the logic of ambiguity, which finds its expression in the connection of the risk society with the cosmopolitism. Both trends – the reflexivity of the unknown and the cosmopolitan moment – point to a global change in the society in the 21st century, whose priority is security.