Quarter Four Report 2018

CERT NZ’s quarter four report provides an overview of the cyber security events reported between 1 October and 31 December 2018. It offers insights on incident types, how they operate and how you can best mitigate them.

This quarter, CERT NZ received 1,333 incident reports. This is the highest number of reports to date. These reports show how online threats and vulnerabilities can have a big impact on business operations and the day-to-day lives of New Zealanders.

Some examples include:

  • A significant spike in scam and fraud reports which made up 50% of the total number of reports received in quarter four, an increase of 230% from quarter three.
  • Reports increased by more than 60% (from quarter three) across every region in New Zealand, with the exception of Auckland which increased by 47%.
  • Reports from the age group 65+ made up over quarter of reports about individuals.

Quarterly Report: Highlights [PDF, 2.2 MB]

Quarterly Report: Data Landscape [PDF, 1015 KB]

Highlights

Results in numbers

Number of incidents reported by quarter

chart showing 1,333 incidents reported in Q4 2018, up from 870 in Q3, 736 in Q2 and 506 in Q1 2018We received 1,333 reports in the fourth quarter of 2018. This is the highest number of incidents reported to CERT NZ since its establishment.

Results by incident

Breakdown by incident category

Scams and fraud, phishing and credential harvesting, and malware remained the highest incident categories in quarter four.

chart showing 666 reports of scams and frauds and 431 reports of phishing and credential harvesting, with much lower numbers for others categories

Significant spike in scams

graph showing spike in scams in 2018 quarter four

Reports of scams and fraud increased in quarter four, making up half the number of reports received, with a total loss of $4.9 million. In total, 666 scam and fraud reports were received in quarter four, up 236% from quarter three. 91% of scam and fraud reports were about individuals across all ages groups and regions in New Zealand.

Case study: CERT NZ helps business resolve malware infection

In quarter four, a medium-sized New Zealand business was disrupted by a malware infection. 

Email extortion scam

Of all reports received in quarter four, a third related to a particular scam variant, email extortion scams.

CERT NZ 2018 summary provides an overview of what we've seen and done in the past year.

2018 summary report