Over-55s most vulnerable to cyber attacks

Wednesday, 30 May 2018

Cert NZ director Rob Pope said people over the age of 55 years were most vulnerable to the cyber attacks.

Kiwis have reported losing nearly $3 million directly from cyber security-related incidents just in the first three months of the year, according to the Government cyber-security agency Cert NZ.

More than 500 cyber security incidents were reported by Kiwis in the period between January and March.

Cert NZ director Rob Pope said people over the age of 55 years were most vulnerable to the cyber attacks.

Almost 90 per cent of the reports were made by people in that age group.

* Police miss deadline to train all officers in the fight against cyber-crime

* Cyber-security agency CERT NZ promises it will make a 'big difference'**

Pope said phishing email campaigns were one of the most common, prolific and successful cyber threats.

'In quarter one, there has been a real focus on taking down phishing websites where we can, including working alongside key partners such as banks and financial institutions whose brands are so often misrepresented in these campaigns.'

Scam and fraud-related incidents were the second most common, and unauthorised access was the third most common cyber threat.

The first quarter of 2018 saw the highest number of incident reports since Cert NZ was set up in April last year.

The agency has been allocated $5.9m in this year's Budget as part of the $22m funding it is expected to receive over the next three years.

Last month telecommunication companies 2degees, Spark and Vodafone announced a partnership with the NZ Telecommunications Forum, to develop a scam-calling prevention code, aimed to improve the process of identifying, verifying and taking action on scam calls.

The forum's chief executive, Geoff Thorn, said the code would help the industry react more quickly to any incidence of fraud reported by the public, and block calls from numbers used by scammers.

Thorn said scammers were becoming increasingly sophisticated in their approach.

'Often, they have access to personal information obtained through third party sources and may use advanced systems to make it appear as though they are calling from a genuine New Zealand phone number.

'The telco industry can only do so much to monitor what phone services are being used for,' Thorn said.