Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf said more than 2000 unauthorised attempts were made to access Budget information on its website. Photo / Greg Bowker
Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf said more than 2000 unauthorised attempts were made to access Budget information on its website. Photo / Greg Bowker
Opinion
Cyber-security experts, like modern-day Cassandras, have often struggled to have their voices heard.
They've warned for years on the danger of cybercrime and the need to treat it as a serious threat.
But there's been complacency among many Kiwis, nestling down the bottom of the world, about the danger itposes.
Dramatic events in Parliament this week suggest we shouldn't be so relaxed.
It's important, actually critical, for the integrity of these markets that all traders enjoy a level playing field and be provided with price-sensitive information at the same time.
After the National Party drip-fed details apparently gleaned from today's Wellbeing Budget, Treasury made the extraordinary claim that it had been hacked.
Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf yesterday said there had been more than 2000 unauthorised attempts to get Budget-related information from its website.
National leader Simon Bridges was quick to fire back, saying claims documents were hacked from Treasury was a lie.
As is the role of Opposition, he attacked a "bungling, incompetent" Government over the early release of the sensitive Budget details and stressed his party had obtained its information legally.
The matter has been referred to police, who will in good time reveal where the truth of the matter rests.
Even if the Budget leak turns out to be more digital blunder than burglary, Treasury and all other Government departments should urgently review their security systems.
While the information obtained by National had little real-world use outside the beltway, other data held by government or Crown entities is far more valuable.
Should someone or some agency get the jump on an Official Cash Rate move from the Reserve Bank, or early access to Gross Domestic Product data from Statistics New Zealand, they could potentially make big gains on financial markets.
National leader Simon Bridges says his party obtained early Budget information legally. Photo / Mark Mitchell
It's important, actually critical, for the integrity of these markets that all traders enjoy a level playing field and be provided with price-sensitive information at the same time.
Estimates of the financial harm caused by cybercrime in New Zealand vary.
The losses reported to the Government's computer emergency response team in 2018 was modest at $14.1 million.
But the volume of identified incidents hit 3400 – up 205 per cent on the year before.
Finance Minister Grant Robertson will present the Wellbeing Budget today. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Cyber-security experts now liken the urgency of imminent cyber threats to that of the arms race - as organisations work to protect their data and assets, hackers and scammers are increasingly coming up with elaborate ways to break through security systems.
"What you see with the arms race where people are building better bombs and weapons the same applies in the cyber world where we're putting in bigger walls or better defences but someone's finding ways around that," Vodafone cybersecurity boss Colin James said last month.
In its early release of information, apparently in today's Budget, National claimed $1.3 billion would be earmarked for defence.
With the rising spectre of cybercrime, perhaps a portion of that spend should be used to guard the country against digital as well as physical threats.
