High Cost of Being Gullible

The price of cyber crime is astounding.

• UK Guardian: Consumers and businesses in the UK lost an estimated £27 billion in 2012 due to cybercrime.[i] 

• Ponemon Institute: The average annualized cost of cybercrime for 56 benchmarked U.S. organizations is $8.9 million per year.[ii]  

• People’s Public Security University of China: In 2012, economic losses from Internet crimes in China totaled an estimated $46.4 billion (RMB 289 billion).[iii]

And it's growing annually.

So what does being gullible cost the average American?

See if you can find the cost to the average Senior Citizen in the US today.

What does this say about the need to investigate online information?

---

[i] John Burn-Murdoch, “UK was the world’s most phished country in 2012 – why is it being targeted?”, www.guardian.co.uk, last modified on February 27, 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2013/feb/27/uk-most-phishing-attacks-worldwide.

[ii] “2012 Cost of Cyber Crime Study: United States” Ponemon Institute, October 2012, http://www.ponemon.org/local/upload/file/2012_US_Cost_of_Cyber_Crime_Study_FINAL6%20.pdf

[iii] “Internet crimes cost China over $46 billion in 2012, report claims”, thenextweb.com, last modified January 29, 2013, http://thenextweb.com/asia/2013/01/29/china-suffered-46-4b-in-internet-crime-related-losses-in-2012-report/.

Do you believe everything you read?

Here's a good opportunity to put the Baloney Detection Kit (and fact checking) to work:

According to Denver's ABC news affiliate,

"This year, one in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer but 207,000 women will hear, 'You have breast cancer.' Furthermore, 63 percent of women will find out they have ovarian cancer after it has spread."

Before accepting these numbers as credible, it would be a good idea to check the facts. This is something most students don't do. Let's see how it would play out if they cited the article without trying to verify the facts.

Let's start with "one in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer." That should be easy to check. Query: prostate cancer rate

First hit: American Cancer Society: "About 1 man in 6 will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime."

Second hit: National Cancer Institute: "Based on rates from 2006-2008, 16.48% of men born today will be diagnosed with cancer of the prostate at some time during their lifetime." That's about 1 in 6.

It appears Channel 7 got one fact right (1 in 6) and one fact wrong ('this year,' as opposed to a 'lifetime').  If you skim the comments at the bottom of Channel 7's article, one reader states exactly the same thing.

So, while the source seems credible (ABC News affiliate), other sources do not verify the first set of numbers. The student who cites this has inaccurate facts.

What about the other numbers?  What do your students find?