2025 Cyber Security Behaviour Tracker
The NCSC and CERT NZ, in collaboration with The Research Agency, released the 2025 Cyber Security Behaviour Tracker.
In summary, New Zealander’s are more aware of online threats and are displaying the right behaviours. And yet, 1 in 5 New Zealanders has had some form of financial loss averaging $1.2k. equating to a staggering $1.6 billion that Kiwis lost to online scams last year.
"People are becoming more confident in their cyber security, though awareness and experience of threats remains steady. Time and stress are the most common impacts, but many also experience financial loss, and this represents a significant cost to New Zealand.
In spite of this, nearly half don’t report the cyber-attacks they experience, and this behaviour has decreased year-on-year."
Key Insights
54% of adult New Zealanders had experienced an online threat in the last six months.
Cyber attacks have a significant cost on New Zealand’s economy and on New Zealanders. 830,000 people experienced some financial loss, with the average amount lost per attack being $1,260.
These incidents also lead to loss of time, loss of personal information and impacts mental wellbeing.
Almost everyone agrees it’s important to protect themselves online, and more than half took steps to protect themselves in the last six months. These behaviours include using two-factor authentication on main accounts, changing default passwords on devices like Wi-Fi routers, and using a password manager.
Apathy is also a key reason for not reporting incidents, with a decrease in reporting cyber incidents.
How can we encourage more people to report incidents?
The report tells us that time-loss and stress are the most common impacts of online threats.
A challenge for anyone working in cyber security is how we can encourage more people to report incidents.
Letting people know the big numbers (how many people fall victim, and how much it’s costing them, and NZ as a whole), can only help raise awareness and a spirit of social and community responsibility to help prevent such scams for others, by reporting them.
Who wouldn’t want to help their fellow Kiwi be more safe from scams that can take $1k from their pockets?
