More cyber threats reported in NZ

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has reported a significant increase in the number of reported attacks against New Zealand government agencies, critical national infrastructure, and private sector organisations in 2012.

The NCSC is part of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), and supports government and critical infrastructure to protect themselves from cyber threats.

GCSB Director Ian Fletcher says, “In 2011, we recorded 90 threats that meet the threshold which puts government or other critical national infrastructure at risk. In 2012 we’re up to134. “These are relatively small numbers, but it does amount to at least three serious attacks every week, and we are sure this is under reported.

“The NCSC was established in 2011 so reporting incidents is still relatively new, and based on the attacks in other parts of the world it’s highly likely there is a lot more happening in New Zealand. There’s no reason to think we’re different,” Mr Fletcher said.

The NCSC 2012 Incident Summary shows scam and spam related incidents were the most common, with denial of service attacks on networks, and botnet/malware activity the next most common.

The target of most incidents was the private sector then government. More than half of the incidents originated overseas.

Specific details of the incidents are not published to protect the targets and vulnerabilities.

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