“This may well turn out to be a watershed in terms of widespread awareness of the vulnerability of modern society,” said Linton Wells II, the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for networks and information integration at the Pentagon. “It has gotten the attention of a lot of people.”

This could sound like fear mongering but not in the context of the full story; we had a prime example of the kinds of vulnerabilities when business and government services depend on the Internet.

The ABC affiliate ransomware story, on the other hand was vague, didn't offer case studies or statistics on the problem. There is a good explanation of ransomware:

All the files are locked until you agree to pay a ransom. Like other scams, hackers can infiltrate your system through a phishy e-mail or attachment. But most often, this scheme hits when you click on an innocent looking but infected website.

and some tips on how to prevent it but the story ends with:

If you get hit, it's important to file a report with local or federal law enforcement and alert the credit bureaus.

Good advice, but what is the level of risk here? Will the average reader feel like there is yet another looming danger every time they go on line? How about data on many cases of ransomware have been reported? How well does anti-virus protect against ransomware in the wild?

When we lack good measures of threats, case studies are the next best thing. Disucssing threats without context can leave readers, especially non-technical readers, with the inaccurate or unfounded impressions.