NZers lost $3.6 million to cyber crime between October and December. File photo. Photo: Pixabay
The number of scams reported in the final quarter of 2023 dropped by 24 percent, but New Zealanders are being warned that it should not be taken as a sign that scammers are giving up.
New Zealanders lost $3.6 million to cyber crime between October and December, down 24 percent from the previous quarter.
The number of reports to CERT NZ in the fourth quarter were also down 12 percent from the previous quarter, with 1881 reports made.
"Phishing, whether it's via email, text message or phone call, remains the biggest category of all cyber incidents, and one we see on a daily basis," said CERT NZ director Rob Pope.
Pope said that was scams like text messages claiming to be from New Zealand Post, or a person's bank.
But the lower numbers did not give Pope confidence that scammers are slowing down.
"While the lower numbers for 2023 in total may seem like a good thing, we know that underreporting is still happening," he said.
But it was not quite clear why there was a dip this quarter.
"It could be a combination of reporting fatigue, people perhaps not being clear about where to report to, or even in these really tight economic times, whether people are just really not bothered about reporting because they've got bigger issues on their mind."
If people had been a victim of a scam, he said the earlier it was reported, the more opportunity there was to recover financial losses.
He said a scam could happen to anybody and people shouldn't be ashamed to report it.
CERT NZ received 7935 reports in total in 2023, 3 percent fewer than in 2022.