Glossary
Prevention bias
What is Prevention Bias?
In research on information-security spending, prevention bias is a preference for measures that prevent an incident over measures that detect and respond to it, even when the options offer the same expected return. The bias concerns how a protective budget is divided, not simply preferring to avoid losses rather than obtain gains.
Prevention bias in information security
Safi, Browne and Jalali Naini tested security-investment decisions in economic games. Participants favored prevention although the task made detection and response equally effective in return-on-investment terms. The study also examined overinvestment in security.
Example and limits
A decision maker might prefer a preventive control to an equally effective detection-and-response system because prevention feels more protective. This is an illustration of the experimental distinction. In practice, different costs, threats and consequences can justify different budgets.