Antivirus FUD obscures reality
Published: 29 Aug 2003 10:05 BST
Anti-virus experts say the metrics surrounding the spread of computer viruses and worms leave a lot to be desired, and have criticised some companies for attempting to capitalise on fear, uncertainty and doubt.
The Australia managing director of mail filtering software company Clearswift, Chy Chuawiwat, told ZDNet Australia some of the data he's seen companies release just doesn't add up.
"Why is no-one questioning them?" he asked. "The industry is running on fear, uncertainty, doubt and unsubstantiated statistics."
Recalling one instance where he saw two vendors "racing" each other on the prevalence statistics of a virus, Chuawiwat says the estimated distribution figures from both vendors incremented by 50,000 in sequential updates. He says there's no way that data could be backed up.
Some sections of the media aren't making things any better, Chuawiwat says. "Sensationalise it, and off we go!"
"Some vendor put out a release saying that 80 percent of spam was porn," he said. His company's data suggests the biggest increase in spam has been related to the promotion of health and lifestyle products. It doesn't make for interesting reading -- while a big boost in porn spam does -- so the statistics are released selectively, he says.
That's not to say he claims any sort of statistical high ground -- Chuawiwat admits that Clearswift is not collecting enough "hosted filtering" data to give it a statistically robust insight into the threats out there, but says he gets enough to know when people have got it wrong. "If we have data that we don't think is statistically valid, then we don't comment on it," he said.
Computer Associates' head of antivirus research and development, Dr Eugene Dozortsev, says he advocates the responsible publishing of threats, but sometimes that can be quite difficult.
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