Financial losses reported to CERT NZ hit quarterly record

Losses reach $6.5m in Q2

CERT NZ has released its latest quarterly report, for the three months to 30 June, showing financial losses reported at $6.5m up from $1.7m in the previous quarter, and the highest quarter figure to date.

However the Q2 figure was well down on the $5.9m reported in Q4 of 2018. Of the 1197 reports in Q2, 21 percent reported some type of loss.

There were also 29 reports of losses, totalling $62,000 indirect financial losses relating to the unauthorised access of a cryptocurrency exchange, but CERT NZ other reports suggested losses could potentially be in the $20m-$30m range making it one of New Zealand’s costliest cyber security incidents to date.

There was a 150 percent increase in suspicious network traffic from Q1, generally attempting to find insecure points or vulnerabilities in networks, infrastructure or computers.

CERT NZ said 94 percent of the suspicious network traffic reports were from the information and telecommunications, and technology sectors.

However, unlike other statistics in the report which are based on incidents reported to CERT NZ, these were found by CERT NZ and it said it was expanding the way it collects and extracts threat information from the international landscape and as a result it had been to identify more suspicious network traffic reports.

The most common type of suspicious network traffic CERT NZ saw during the quarter were brute force attempts to gain unauthorised access.    

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