Security firms put the boot into the media

At this week's Virus Bulletin 2005 conference in Dublin, a panel session featuring representatives from IBM, McAfee and Symantec turned nasty for the assembled press with vendors airing grievances about what they consider to be "a layer of incompetence" in media companies.

Although they were, perhaps understandably, quick to absolve the few press attending the event, they expressed concerns about a tendency to over-hype and mislead the public on key issues, as well as identifying a habit of turning negligible threats into apparently major news.

The panel also suggested the media tends to jump on "sexy threats" such as mobile phone viruses.

However, more than one attendant journalist was quick to point out that the source of those stories, particularly in the mainstream media, is often a press release issued by the vendor. In fact, it often falls to the media to rein in the claims made by vendors seeking coverage.

Andrew Lee, CTO of security vendor Eset, said: "One of the biggest problems with the media is they are filtering very technical detail down to a level where it becomes an interesting story."

He added that "a lack of technical knowledge" and general "incompetence" means the press often twist the facts they are presented with.

He said: "We have to be more clever about the way we disseminate information."

Eric Chien from vendor Symantec added: "There have definitely been cases where news stories have misrepresented the facts but I'd hope that an experienced IT administrator would check what they hear with their antivirus vendor."