Government agencies that haven’t beefed up email security could be leaving the door open to hackers, according to an international cyber security company.
International Cyber Security company, Proofpoint claims 50 percent of New Zealand government agencies are exposed when it comes to email security.
Senior director of Asia Pacific and Japan, Steve Moros told Checkpoint many of New Zealand’s government agencies did not have high enough email security.
“50 percent are at [a high level of email security] at the moment.”
He said there had been some progress as last year only 26 percent of New Zealand’s government agencies had the highest level of email security.
DMARC reject, an email security setting that blocks messages that fail authentication checks, was becoming a requirement for agencies, Moros said.
He said the nearly $310,000 scam targeting Whanganui District Council proved the importance of email security.
The Whanganui District Council identified in January 2023 that an international payment made the previous December had been sent to a fraudulent bank account.
Moros said artificial intelligence was also making it much easier for hackers to target companies.
“That’s why we need to make sure we get real progress getting all government agencies to the right level of enforcement, we’ve got to close the gap.”
He said there was “no real excuse” for agencies without high level email security but acknowledged it was a complicated process.
“This is all around protecting people to stop them from being lured into losing their hard earned money.
“Or potentially exposing records to these hackers who will then use it to go make money through exploitation, essentially ransom so ‘if you don’t pay we will publish the information’.”
General manager for the government digital delivery agency, Richard Ashworth, said the goal of the Secure Government Email (SGE) Framework is to provide technical settings for email security that meet industry standards.
The settings will provide:
Ashworth said all agencies were on track to have adopted the SGE Framework by October 2026 at the latest.
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