“Benford’s Law expects 30.1% of numbers in a list of financial transactions to begin with a ‘1.’” Go figure. I would have thought it would be 10%, were the sample large enough.
“To Find Fraud, Just Do the Math,” Wall Street Journal, December 6, 2014 A2. When more-than-the-expected number of fours came up in a review of refunds paid, investigators looked deeper and found the outliers were committing fraud. Benford’s Law led the way. Interesting piece.
Security is a part of information governance. Security includes those steps you take to make sure your employees aren’t stealing. One of those steps is running the appropriate analytics. Looking at the numbers differently may lead to different conclusions.
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