The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) of the country’s top intelligence agency Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) has joined the government programme of the non-profit service. By doing so, Wellington encourages every New Zealander to be vigilant against cybercrime and its ills.
The service enables individuals or organisations to identify whether an email address they own has been exposed in a public data breach. Email addresses disclosed in data breaches are collected by malicious cyber actors and may be used to tailor their attacks to specific victims, increasing the risk of cyber security incidents.
Email breaches pose a serious threat to an entity, private or public. They are part of the bigger category of data breaches. Some of the grave consequences of data breaches are:
- Financial loss
- Reputational damage
- Operational downtime
- Legal action
- Loss of sensitive data
While bigger corporations can be adversely affected, their access to funds can allow them to bring themselves back up. Smaller businesses often fold when data breaches happen.
The NPO’s government programme enables the NCSC to receive alerts from this service for official New Zealand Government email addresses disclosed in data breaches. This includes, and is limited to, addresses ending in .govt.nz, .mil.nz, .cri.nz, and .parliament.nz. Once the NCSC receives an alert, it can notify the affected agency and provide advice.
The programme provides an early warning system to users and businesses so they can act quickly before things go out of hand. The service shares only email addresses affected by a data breach with the NCSC. Alerts may reference other affected types of information associated with the email (such as a password), but the information itself is not shared.
It’s a useful service that can mean saving people a lot of trouble. Over time, the alerts will also provide the NCSC with insights into cyber hygiene across government, supporting more effective cyber security policy and resilience initiatives.
With all that’s at stake, every New Zealander should benefit from the programme. The good news is the NPO offers its services to the government programme at no cost. The non-profit has been helping governments all over the world.
Earlier, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand had a data breach. The bank manages monetary policy to maintain price stability, promote the maintenance of a sound and efficient financial system. Just last year, it apologised for a “malicious and illegal” breach of customer data after a cyber-attack on a third-party service.
It’s not the first time a cyberattack affected New Zealand. However, the country has been resilient enough to bounce back. Indeed, cyber resiliency needs to be attended to in one’s digital transformation.
The result should speak volumes for itself. Not only has New Zealand a booming ICT community, but also its technology sector is gaining ground. For instance, its FinTech is showing robust numbers and is growing steadily. Technology exports, too, have become a substantial piece of the country’s total yearly exports. Even its core industry is being positively affected. New Zealand is an agricultural nation with its dairy products leading the way. To a large degree, agriculture has been massively affected by ICT technology as smart agritech has found its way to the industry, pushing the envelope in the process.