On May 14th (2025), the New Zealand National Cyber Security Centre (part of the Government Communications Security Bureau – GCSB) released the results of their annual survey which is conducted by The Research Agency (TRA).
The annual survey analyses and tracks New Zealanders’ cyber security knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour.
The results made for both good reading and bad reading in equal measure.
The big stand out was that in the last six months, 54% of survey respondents had experienced an online threat and around 830,000 had experienced some financial loss, with the average amount lost per attack being $1,260.
Now, while this may seem like quite a small figure, if that loss is extrapolated across the entire New Zealand adult population, it indicates that around $1.6 billion was lost last year (2024).
One of the interesting and pleasing results from the survey was that almost all survey respondents agreed that it’s important to protect themselves online, and more than half took steps to protect themselves in the last six months.
These behaviours included increasing usage of two-factor authentication for logging into cloud / web services, changing default passwords on devices like Wi-Fi routers, and using a password manager.
The survey also saw apathy was a common barrier among those who did not take cyber security actions and/or did not report cyberattack incidents.
By reporting cyberattacks to NCSC or CERTNZ, you can get help and support to respond and recover to attacks. It also helps other New Zealanders (ie: friends, family, relatives etc) keep safe from similar attacks and help to keep them from losing money.