Thanks for furthering this topic. All threat reports have value – but it’s critical their authors be very specific about what exactly is being reported upon. If the focus is on desktop and consumer, say so. If the focus is a small subset of families, be very clear about that and provide the number of families covered. Another example would be prevalence lists that routinely portray Bagle or Netsky as top threats without clarifying the impact email volume has on these numbers. In short, this is not a Microsoft problem, but rather an industry-wide problem.

Transparent reporting is critical – accurate portrayal assists in risk analysis. By combining *accurately portrayed* data from multiple sources, the reader can glean the bigger picture of a term you hate: the malware/threat landscape.

In other words, if a vendor only sees apples and cannot see oranges and bananas, then position the paper as an expert look at apples and tell me everything I could possibly want to know about crab apples, red apples, green apples, etc. But don’t try to pretend that the apples are representative of the entire fruit basket. That’s just misleading.

Not to sure I would call this myopic though. Myopic vision (or near-sightedness) implies the view is perfectly fine up close. In reality, no matter how closely these misrepresentations are held to one’s eyes, they never stand up to scrutiny. Tunnel vision, conversely, implies a narrower view – i.e. tunneling in only on what one can see. ALL vendors by necessity have tunnel vision – they can only report on what it is they see through their products/customers. That’s fine, expected, as it should be. Just tell the reader upfront so there’s less confusion.

– Mary