This Cyber Smart Week Don’t Give To The Scamathon!

For this year’s Cyber Smart Week, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is calling for us to all stop 'donating' to The Scamathon and to protect ourselves online.

New Zealanders lose $22,708 every hour to scams and other online incidents (average numbers based on a survey of banks in 2023). The losses range from people losing their entire savings or small businesses losing their investments, to individuals losing $100 to a social media scammer.

The NCSC's Threat and Incident Response team lead, Tom Roberts, emphasises that every loss, no matter the size, has a huge impact on someone.

"The Scamathon riffs of the idea of a Telethon, playing on all the different ways scammers appeal to us, to take advantage of us. It was even filmed out at Avalon studios, the home of the original Telethon."

"While the message is conveyed through some dark humour, it highlights a hard truth that New Zealanders are giving away large amounts of money to online criminals. Most people think they wouldn’t fall for a scam, believing we’re too savvy, but the reality is scammers prey on our good nature, and through our digital devices can get to us at any time of the day or night."

The current trend of reporting to NCSC shows this year New Zealand will potentially suffer the highest ever total losses.

"Cyber Smart Week will come to an end, but The Scamathon doesn’t stop. We need to stay aware and keep working to block cyber criminals, and it’s something we can all do together," Roberts said.

The NCSC is highlighting the importance of doing the simple things to stop scammers, including using strong passwords and turning on two-factor authentication (2FA).

Research shows that 43% of New Zealanders use the same password across various accounts, 30% admit they don't use strong passwords, and 32% don't use 2FA.

"It’s important to get the basics right. A long, strong and, importantly, unique password is going to stop a lot of cybercrime. Add in 2FA, and you're a long way to keeping scammers out of your online accounts. These are crucial steps we all need to get right."

The Own Your Online website has all the information you need to do learn how to make stronger passwords and guides for turning on 2FA for your bank and other important accounts.

The Scamathon content will update each day across the duration of Cyber Smart Week, showing in real time just how much scammers are taking from New Zealanders.

Notes:

Financial loss figures have been taken from Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's survey of banks in 2023, showing a total loss of $198m over the year.

Research figures are taken from the 2024 Consumer monitor.
https://www.cert.govt.nz/assets/Cyber-Security-Behaviour-Tracker-2024-final-research-report.pdf

About Cyber Smart Week

Cyber Smart Week is an annual event to raise the awareness of cyber security issues and how best to combat them. Started in 2017, Cyber Smart Week is part of an international month of activities, with the same goal. The campaigns are often visually gripping, or even light-hearted, to reach the widest audience across Aotearoa.

2024 marks the first year that NCSC is the lead agency for Cyber Smart Week after the integration with CERT NZ.

About Own Your Online

See www.ownyouronline.govt.nz for advice and information about cyber security threats facing everyday New Zealanders, organisations and businesses.

Own your Online is designed to be a first port of call for anyone wanted more information about cyber security. It's a plain language site with easy-to-follow guides. It also has tools for businesses, including video tutorials and templates for creating incident response plans and password policies.

About the NCSC:

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is a part of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB). The NCSC is the Government's lead operational cyber security agency. As the agency holding the computer emergency response team (CERT) function, the NCSC works to support all businesses, organisations and individuals who are affected by cyber security incidents. The NCSC also provides trusted and authoritative information and advice, while also collating a profile of the threat landscape in New Zealand.

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