2020 Unisys Security Index reveals New Zealand’s big security concerns

SECURITY INDEX 2020 Unisys Security Index reveals New Zealand’s big security concerns

Natural disasters top security concern for New Zealanders, Kiwi women more concerned about impact of COVID-19 than men, and high trust for government tracing tech, 2020 Unisys Security Index finds.

New research from Unisys Corporation reveals New Zealand women are significantly more concerned than their male counterparts about the impact of COVID-19, according to the new 2020 Unisys Security Index.

The longest-running snapshot of consumer security concerns conducted globally, the Unisys Security Index asked New Zealanders to assess their level of concern about how global health crises, such as the outbreak of the COVID-19, impacted the economic stability of New Zealand; their job security; their financial security; their family’s physical health; and New Zealand’s health infrastructure.

Overall, in the COVID-19 environment, New Zealanders were more concerned about the stability of the nation’s economy, health infrastructure and their family’s wellbeing than their personal health or data security.

Women, however, expressed significantly higher levels of concerns for most areas and in particular the stability of New Zealand’s health infrastructure (61 percent of women seriously concerned vs 40 percent of men), the nation’s economic stability (63 percent of women vs 48 percent of men), family health (55 percent of women vs 41 percent of men) and financial security (47percent of women vs 35 percent of men) .

“These findings indicate that the pandemic is causing women more stress than men, which is likely to be a reflection of their personal experience given the overrepresentation of women in frontline occupations such as healthcare – with nine in 10 nurses female,” said Andrew Whelan, vice president, Commercial and Financial Sector, Unisys Asia Pacific, who is based in Wellington.

Top security concerns change in 2020: Return to normality The overall measure of security concerns of the New Zealand public is 136 out of 300, the third lowest of the 15 countries surveyed. It has returned to recent normal levels, down from 143 recorded immediately after the Christchurch attacks in 2019.

In 2020, the top three security concerns are natural disasters (47 percent of New Zealanders seriously concerned about this issue), bankcard fraud (44 percent) and identity theft (43 percent).

The top security concerns have changed over the last 12 months. After the Christchurch attacks, concern about national security in relation to war or terrorism had jumped to the top of the list, but in 2020 it has returned to its previous position as the second lowest of the eight issues tracked.

In 2020, New Zealand women are more concerned about most types of security issues that are used to calculate the index, with a Unisys Security Index of 142 for women compared to 130 for men – 9 percent higher. In particular women are significantly more concerned about natural disasters, ability to meet financial obligations and their personal safety.

Despite data theft issues of bankcard fraud and identity theft ranking among the top concerns, the New Zealand public’s concern for the cybersecurity issues that contribute to such theft has decreased: 40 percent of New Zealanders are concerned about computer viruses and hacking, down from 48 percent in 2019, and 35 percent are concerned about online transactions, down from 39 percent a year ago.

In addition, when assessing the concerns arising from the global pandemic only 22 percent of Kiwis were concerned about the risk of a security breach while working remotely, and 26 percent were concerned about the risk of being scammed.

“Consumers appear to be blasé about the dangers of being online – or simply distracted by their higher

concern about national infrastructure and family well-being. This is a critical issue for organisations that underwent a rapid transformation to move to WFH models due to the pandemic,” said Ashwin Pal, director of security services, Unisys Asia Pacific.

“Meanwhile cyberattacks in New Zealand are increasing – up 38 percent during 2019 even before the COVID-19 scams started. Understandably, people were more concerned about their ability to access health services should they or their family require them – and likely assumed their employer would take care of securing data and systems in the ‘new normal’ environment. However, for many organisations the first challenge was simply enabling their teams to work remotely.”

“People are the weakest link in security. Shadow IT grows with every unauthorised app downloaded, even if well intentioned for remote collaboration - it might not be covered by the security rigour deployed across the rest of the organisation,” observed Mr Pal.

“Employers need to ensure their people have secure direct access to applications, are trained to identify and avoid malicious scams and phishing attacks designed to exploit the fears and distractions created by the pandemic, and can quickly isolate devices or parts of the network to minimise the extent of a breach – because breaches are inevitable.”

Kiwis trust government tech in emergency response The study also polled the New Zealand public’s willingness to share personal data with organisations or use a facial recognition app on their phone to confirm their identity.

Almost two in three (62 percent) New Zealanders say they would be willing to share their location data with police so that they could be located in an emergency. Whereas less than half are willing to share such information with the government to expedite access to citizen services such as drivers licence or social benefit applications (48 percent), expedite border processing in airports (46 percent), or share it with banks (47 percent) to identify suspicious activity in their accounts. Even less are willing to share information with health insurers (33 percent) or retailers (23 percent).

Overall, Kiwis are more receptive to using a mobile app with facial recognition to verify their identity to access online services from the government than with banks. The majority (58 percent) are willing to use such an app to apply for/renew driving licenses (58 percent) and approximately half are willing to use it to financial benefits (50 percent) or enable government agencies update

their contact details (49 percent). Whereas only 41 percent are willing to use this type of mobile app to apply for a credit card or home loan with a bank.

“The findings suggest a high trust in the government collecting private data when it is for an emergency response, which reflects the relatively high levels of compliance among New Zealanders with the COVID-19 safety measures,” said Andrew Whelan, vice president, Commercial and Financial Sector, Unisys Asia Pacific, based in Wellington.

For more information visit www. unisyssecurityindex.co.nz.