One of the big downsides, however, was the 103 percent increase in direct financial losses in the quarter up to $6.64 million from just $3.28 million in Q3 of 2021.
That came from a total of 414 incidents, CERT NZ said.
The majority of financial losses, 65 percent, were below $500; but 10 cost over $100,000 each, up from seven in the previous quarter.
Of those 10 incidents, four related to a new job or business opportunity scam, three related to a buying, selling or donating goods online and one was related to cryptocurrency investments.
While not all those who reported incidents provided their age, the data clearly showed those aged over 55 lost the most money.
In Q3 2021 the amount lost for the two age bands above 55 was just $493,000. That increased to $4.5 million in Q4.
Direct financial losses also doesn’t cover the impact of data and operational losses on businesses, Pope said.
“While we work with partner organisations to recover some of these funds, the best course of action is always prevention.
“That’s the reason CERT NZ promotes steps like using long, strong and unique passwords, turning on two factor authentication and keeping software up to date,” he said.
The total number of reports to the agency jumped by 92 percent in the quarter, the agency said, from 2072 to 3977.
The biggest increase was malware incidents, which was up a staggering1030 percent to 1707 compared to the previous quarter.
Flubot – the text message scam impacting Android phones – made up…
