Critical New Zealand Data Found Posted On The Dark Web

Uploaded on 2025-08-14 in NEWS-Cybersecurity News, GOVERNMENT-National, FREE TO VIEW

Thousands of leaked credentials for employees from NZ government departments, banks and healthcare organisations can now be found on the Dark Web. This data is now part of over 150 million compromised records connected to New Zealand that is accessible on the Dark Web, according to a study by tech start-up nWebbed Intelligence.

The company's cyber security study analysed more than 30 billion credentials available for sale on the Dark Web and found links to more than 198,000 New Zealand companies and entities.

It also found the usernames and passwords of more than 18,000 NZ government workers, 3200 banking staff and 2000 healthcare organisation accounts were in leaked databases.

nWebbed Intelligence founder Julian Wendt said local organisations were under-estimating the scale of cyber risk, and an urgent review of cyber security protocols was needed in the country's sensitive institutions and corporations. He said some breaches were going undetected for years.

The speed of detecting cyber attacks varies greatly, but on average, it takes a significant amount of time, often hundreds of days, for organizations to identify and contain a breach. While some advanced attacks can be detected within minutes or hours, the average time to detect and contain a data breach is much longer.

Indeed, the pace and sophistication of modern cyber criminals requires organitions to keep pace to maintaion nework visibility and place speed of detction at the centre of their defensive armoury.

RNZ | Scoop | Security Brief | Facebook | NZ Herald

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