Source: New Zealand Police (National News)
Police is investigating the possible hacking of a New Zealand research company, and the potential compromise of information sent to the company by Police for the purposes of service quality research.
Assistant Commissioner Jevon McSkimming said Police had been alerted to the data breach by the company concerned.
“The company has also reported the breach to Police as a crime and our High Tech Cyber Crime team is now investigating.
The information provided by Police to the company includes contact details of a selection of people who have had contact with Police. This information is used for surveying our quality of service.
We are working to understand the scope of the hack and the potential impact of any security breaches of information provided by Police.
“Once we have a better understanding of the real risk to people, and the potential impact, we will look to inform those who may have been affected.
NZ Police has suspended provision of any further information to the company and surveying until our investigations are complete.”
In the meantime, Police would urge people to be vigilant and keep safe practices online. These include:
• Be cautious about emails or phone calls asking you to update or verify your details online
• Be cautious of emails saying you’ve won prizes from competitions that you don’t remember entering
• Be cautious of emails that try to get you to act quickly by threatening you with legal action or loss of an account
• Ignore any emails asking you to provide personal information like passwords, or banking information
• Remember legitimate organisations like banks will never ask you to send them your password
• Only open email attachments when you’re expecting them, even if you know who the sender is
• If you’re unsure if an email is from a legitimate organisation, you can contact them to ask. If you do contact them, make sure you go through their official contact channels – don’t use the phone numbers, websites or email addresses included in the email.
Anyone wishing to report potential cyber security problems, can do so online via CERT NZ: https://www.cert.govt.nz/individuals/
ENDS
Issued by Police Media Centre.
