What it means
Source evaluation considers reliability, access, motivation, timeliness, technical visibility, corroboration, and known limitations before information is trusted.
Why it matters
A polished report or high-volume feed can still be wrong, stale, biased, or irrelevant to the organization being protected.
Practical focus
- Separate source reliability from information credibility
- Record known collection limitations
- Corroborate important judgments with independent evidence
- Reassess sources as their behavior changes
Common mistakes
- Trusting a source because it is popular
- Treating anonymous reporting as automatically false or true
- Ignoring conflicts of interest
- Failing to distinguish direct observation from inference
Certification relevance
This subject appears in or supports the following certification bodies of knowledge: