If information, software or devices are used that come from unreliable sources or whose origin and correctness have not been sufficiently verified, their use can involve high risks. This can lead, among other things, to business-relevant information being based on an incorrect database, to calculations producing incorrect results or to incorrect decisions being made. At the same time, the integrity and availability of IT systems may also be impaired.

Examples:

• Recipients may be misled by e-mails, whose origin they have not verified, to carry out certain actions which have adverse effects on themselves or others. For example, the e-mail may contain interesting attachments or links which cause malware to be installed on the recipient's system after they have been clicked. In these cases, the sender of the e-mail may be faked or imitate that of a known communication partner.
• The assumption that a statement is true because you "read it in the newspaper" or "saw it on TV", is not always justified. Thus, incorrect statements may be incorporated into business-critical reports.
• The reliability of information distributed via the Internet varies greatly. Using statements from the Internet without verifying their sources may result in poor decisions.
• When updates or patches from untrusted sources are installed, this may have undesired side effects. When the origin of software is not verified, there is an increased risk that IT systems are infected with malicious code.

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  Copyright by Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik (https://www.bsi.bund.de/)