High profile data leaks provide lessons on protecting our information online

This year New Zealand has already seen several high-profile cyber security incidents involving the loss of customer or patient data, affecting both businesses and individuals.  

Organisations have an obligation to protect their customers and their sensitive personal information – and this recent report highlights some key learnings about ensuring sensitive data is protected. 

“Ensuring basic cyber security measures such as multi-factor authentication [also known as two-factor authentication], managing who has full access to the network, and protection of the network edges were in place could have helped to defend against these incidents” said NCSC Chief Operating Officer, Mike Jagusch.  

“Organisations have an obligation to protect their customers’ and their sensitive personal information by securing their networks with NCSC’s recommended, or similar, minimum-security standards”. 

What does this mean for everyday New Zealanders?

This is a good reminder for all New Zealanders that while organisations have an obligation to keep your data safe, data leaks do happen – so it’s never been more important to take steps to protect yourself against information leaks. 

You can do this by:   

• Not sharing too much information online
• Creating long, strong and unique passwords on your key accounts
• Using two-factor authentication
• Checking to see if any of your information has been leaked already. 

Read the report

Read the Quarter 1 2026 Cyber Insights report(external link)

Read the case study: Lessons learned from data loss incidents(external link)

Read the article: A new frontier in Artificial Intelligence(external link)

More information

Own Your Online offers helpful guidance for both businesses and individuals on how to stay protected.  

For individuals: Protect yourself against information leaks
 
For businesses: Protect your business from a data breach