A government spy agency warns it is "concerned" by revelations linking North Korea to the 'WannaCry' cyber attack.
Overseas intelligence agencies say that North Korea's Lazarus hacking group was behind the ransomware attack, which infected computers across the globe earlier this year.
The Director-General of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), Andrew Hampton, says New Zealand isn't safe.
"Cyber threat analysis from a range of sources, including the United States and the United Kingdom, attributes WannaCry to North Korean cyber threat actors," Mr Hampton says.
"While New Zealand was not significantly impacted by WannaCry, we are not immune from this type of threat. In a globally connected world our relative geographic isolation offers no protection from cyber threats."
The New Zealand National Cyber Security Centre's latest report warns that advanced cyber threats have the potential to cause $640m harm annually to New Zealand's organisations of national significance.
In one example, an unnamed foreign intelligence service used malware to steal an unknown quantity of documents.
"In the 12 months from June 2016 to June 2017 more than one-third (122) of the 396 serious incidents recorded by the GCSB's National Cyber Security Centre involved indicators that have previously been linked to state-sponsored actors," Mr Hampton says.
"Cyber threats continue to increase, in part because of New Zealand's global connectivity but also because the cost barriers are low, and getting lower, while the potential for harm is vast."
Newshub.
