What we’ve seen
Reported incidents and associated financial loss
In 2023, 7,935 incidents were reported to CERT NZ, a 3% decrease from 2022. Individuals, small businesses and large organisations from all over New Zealand submitted incident reports.
24% of incidents reported to CERT NZ included some form of financial loss, with a combined total loss of $18.3 million.
Top incident categories
The top three incident categories in 2023 were Phishing and Credential Harvesting, Scams and Fraud, and Unauthorised Access.
Reports of phishing and credential harvesting have gone down by 2% since 2022
Reports of scams and fraud have gone down 4% since 2022
Reports of unauthorised access have gone down 18% since 2022
Reports of malware are down by a significant 35% since 2022
Top types of scams and fraud
Scams and fraud accounted for almost $15.7 million (86% of overall direct financial loss) in 2023. Of that loss:
- 4.6m went to investment scams
- 3.1m went to scams involving unauthorised money transfer
- 2.5m went to scams involving a new job or business opportunity offers
- 2.3m went to cryptocurrency scams
- 1.7m went to dating or romance scams
- 1m went to scams when buying, selling or donating goods online
- .5m was lost to other types of scams.
Total Reports
Vulnerability reports are an opportunity to prevent a cyber security incident before it occurs.
Vulnerabilities reported to CERT NZ range in severity and complexity.
Vulnerability reporting
Vulnerability reports are an opportunity to prevent a cyber security incident before it occurs.
Vulnerabilities reported to CERT NZ range in severity and complexity.
71 vulnerabilities were reported to CERT NZ in 2022, with 35 being managed under our Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure (CVD) service.
What we’ve done
A new website
CERT NZ launched Own Your Online, a new website designed to help individuals and small-to-medium organisations understand cyber security and strengthen their cyber resilience. From its launch in late October to the end of the year, the website had close to 48,000 visits.
Cyber Smart Week and EXPOSED
The seventh annual Cyber Smart Week took place between 30 October and 5 November 2023. We had 1,214 organisations sign up as supporters, a whopping 136% jump from 514 in 2022. We also worked with seven key industry partners to help share the message with their extensive customer base.
The week started with EXPOSED, a free public exhibition of photographs featuring 10 people who were affected by online incidents. Three of these stories are now a part of our ongoing Own Your Online campaign that encourages New Zealanders to be more secure online.
2023 summary External Link [PDF 660KB]