Prevari utilizes inferential statistics to illustrate environmental risk. Statistics is defined as the science of collecting, organizing, summarizing, analyzing data (called descriptive statistics) and making inferences from the data (called inferential statistics). In the same way, company profit and loss are approximations whereby the actual profit and loss change too rapidly to be exact. Prevari applies this approach to IT risk whereby each time risk is calculated, it is a point in time snapshot. In both cases, statistics are used to make reasonable inferences rather than absolute statements of fact.