The report released by anti-virus company Norton researched 24 countries, including New Zealand, to find out how many people fell victim to crime on the internet as well as the price tag of consumer cybercrime for each country.
On a global scale there were 1.5 million victims of consumer cybercrime every day – or 18 victims per second. And putting paid to the stereotype that men are more technology savvy, the report says they are more likely to become victims of cybercrime with 71% falling prey compared to 63% of women. The report put the world-wide price of consumer cybercrime at $US110 billion ($135.2 billion) annually, or $US197 ($242) per person. In New Zealand the price tag of online crime topped $462.9 million ($569 million). It said the face of cybercrime is changing, with more and more people becoming victims through social media and mobile phones. Half of all New Zealand adults now use a mobile device to access the internet, with 19% of those having received a text message from someone they didn’t know requesting they click on an embedded link or dial an unknown number to retrieve a ‘voicemail’ message.
Around 39% of New Zealand’s social network users have fallen victim to cybercrime scam on social network platforms, while 13% reported that someone had hacked into their profile and pretended to be them. And while many consumers have become aware of the traditional threats associated with online shopping, it said many are still unaware of how cybercrime is rapidly changing. It found 85% of New Zealand adults do not use a security solution for their mobile device, and 63% were not aware that security options for their mobile even existed.
The report found that two out of three adults had been the victims of cybercrime in their lifetime, with close to half of online adults having fallen victims to attacks such as malware, viruses, hacking, scams, fraud and theft in the past year alone. But the report’s authors did praise Kiwis for their “security IQ”, saying New Zealanders got “high marks” in this area, with 91% of people deleting suspicious emails from people they don’t know, 77% do not open attachments or links in unsolicited emails or texts, while 82% of people have a basic anti-virus package. However, the report warned that many people in New Zealand (44%) are still too laid back about using complex passwords and not changing them regularly. The highest number of internet crime victims was found in Russia (92%), China (84%), and South Africa (80%).
