Saturday, January 6, 2001

Re: CIOs: "What, Me Worry?" (RISKS-21.18) I am HIGHLY skeptical of all claims of losses by large corporations. The Virus Myths web page (http:www.vmyths.com) is replete with examples of hyperbole and exaggerated claims of losses due to viruses and virus hoaxes without one shred of substantive evidence to back up those numbers. How does this $45 billion number come about? How does a company arrive at the amount of money they actually lost due to theft of proprietary information? (How does one quantify such a loss anyway? Was the theft before or after the information gained value by market success of the product? Either way, these numbers are all estimates since they can't be physically quantified unless a lawsuit is involved, in which case the "loss" is recoverable.) Notice at least that they didn't have the audacity to blame the losses on hacking incidents, just "theft of proprietary information." [Mark Hull-Richter via risks-digest Volume 21, Issue 19] 0:00 # G!