Covid: a fertile ground to execute cyber scams and reap the riches
Wellington - The covid pandemic has provided cyber criminals with a fertile ground to execute scams and reap the riches, NZTech chief executive Graeme Muller said at the New Zealand cyber-security summit in Wellington today.
The summit is the largest gathering of cyber professionals in New Zealand, who are working to protect Kiwi businesses and organisations.
Muller said cyber-attacks, designed to steal company and customer information, have rocketed.
“Interpol reported that in a four-month period 907,000 spam messages, 737 incidents relating to malware and 48,000 malicious URLs, all covid-related, were detected.
“With many of us working or schooling from home, our concentration levels have been tested to the max. When under pressure and distracted, it is easy to click on a phishing email or unknowingly visit a scam website.
“The rush to remote working has created opportunities for hackers. Any company with lax security measures makes easy pickings.
“According to the security companies about a third of cyber-crime victims are small businesses.”
CERT NZ, the government agency that tracks cyber-crime, says 2600 cybercrimes were reported in the third quarter of last year, up more than over 100 percent from the previous year. Phishing, or credential harvesting, continues to be the most common crime and is growing about 30 percent a quarter.
For further information contact NZTech’s media specialist, Make Lemonade editor-in-chief Kip Brook on 0275 030188
Lisa was born in Auckland at the start of the 1970s, living in a small campsite community on the North Shore called Browns Bay. She spent a significant part of her life with her grandparents, often hanging out at the beaches. Lisa has many happy memories from those days at Browns Bay beach, where fish were plentiful on the point and the ocean was rich in seaweed. She played in the water for hours, going home totally “sun-kissed.” “An adorable time to grow up,” Lisa tells me.
Lisa enjoyed many sports; she was a keen tennis player and netballer, playing in the top teams for her age right up until the family moved to Wellington. Lisa was fifteen years old, which unfortunately marked the end of her sporting career. Local teams were well established in Wellington, and her attention was drawn elsewhere.