The Cost of Cybercrime

In 2017 one million Kiwis lost $177M to cybercrime. This will be significantly higher in 2018.

According to Norton by Symantec findings for 2017, nearly half of all New Zealanders have or know someone who has been impacted by an online security threat. Of those who have ever been a victim of cyber crime, 56% have been affected in the past year. “People’s actions revealed a dangerous disconnect,” Symantec director of consumer business, Mark Gorrie, said. “Despite a steady stream of cyber crime sprees reported by media, too many people appear to feel invincible and skip taking even basic precautions to protect themselves. This disconnect highlights the need for consumer digital safety and the urgency for consumers to get back to basics when it comes to doing their part to prevent cyber crime.” The report, which spanned 20 countries, found that 978 million people were affected by cyber crime in 2017. Specific to New Zealand, millennials were the most common victims of cyber crime during the past 12 months. Despite the availability of device protection technologies such as fingerprint ID, pattern matching and facial recognition, nearly half of millennials don’t have any security measures on their devices. “They were also the most likely age group to share their passwords – half of all millennials have shared their smartphone passwords,” Gorrie explained. Password sharing is “rife” in New Zealand with 51% of Kiwis sharing passwords for at least one online account with others.