An Insurance Council study reveals most people do not believe New Zealand businesses are well prepared for hacking and keeping data secure.
Insurance Council chief executive Tim Grafton Photo: RNZ / Jonathan Mitchell
About 750 people from throughout the country were interviewed and only 21 percent of respondents were confident businesses were prepared.
Insurance Council chief executive Tim Grafton estimated cyber-related crimes cost this country more than $625 million a year.
Listen to Tim Grafton
"Every few months we get a report or every few weeks we get a report of something going wrong and that's just the reported stuff. There's a lot of stuff that will be happening around the place where businesses because of reputational damage will be keeping schtum about it."
He said a lot of businesses in New Zealand probably did not undertake necessary risk assessments and protection measures.
"The frequent changing of their passwords, the complexity around their passwords, all of those sorts of basics that need to be put in place to protect businesses at the first level."