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Cyber crime survey results can be misleading, researchers say

Microsoft researchers says those scary vendor reports warning about the value of cyber crime losses are mostly bunk. That's because they are based on surveys, a...

Federal News Network Staff

April 20, 2012 9:50 am

< a min read

Microsoft researchers says those scary vendor reports warning about the value of cyber crime losses are mostly bunk. That’s because they are based on surveys, and surveys are easy to bias.

The researchers detail their findings in a paper entitled, “Sex, Lies and Cyber Crime Surveys. Dinie Florencio and Cormac Herley said the vendor surveys give too much weight to a few large examples. Because losses are self-reported, survey data are hard to verify. The research point out that surveys are not only misleading, they disagree with one another.

This story is part of Federal News Radio’s daily Cybersecurity Update. For more cybersecurity news, click here.