Online security risk: Half of older Kiwis writing down their passwords, study finds
123RF
A cyber security company says normalising discussions about scams will improve online security.
Research by software company Avast shows half of older New Zealanders still write their passwords on paper, while nearly a fifth of those with older relatives say they'd rather go to the dentist than help family members navigate the internet.
Avast spokesperson Stephen Kho told
Morning Report
young people should be talking to older relatives about cyber security.
"This is a cultural change we need to help change because there's often a lot of stigma and shame to being scammed."
Victims were often defensive and reluctant to take advice on strengthening their online security practices.
"What we need to do is change the narrative and make it common family every day conversations."
He said he received scam messages every day and by regularly discussing them with his relatives he could take away the embarrassment.
"Making that conversation normal and not shameful is a key thing we need to achieve here."
Kho said writing passwords on paper was a bad idea because it meant people opted for simpler passwords or the same one.
"Things are easy to guess ... You end up with very similar or the same passwords for your banking, for your tax, for your online shopping."
If the piece of paper was left somewhere or lost, people were left "totally exposed".
Hackers were getting clever and data breaches were occurring around the world on a regular basis.
"Whenever it happens these hackers will try to attack all other accounts using these same passwords.
"So the idea or best practice is to have complex and long passwords across all your different online accounts."
The best way to keep track of them was with a password manager and then the user would only have to remember one lengthy password to access the list.
Kho said the list would sync across all devices.
The study was conducted online within New Zealand by Dynata on behalf of Gen from 24 April to 9 May 2025 among 1001 adults ages 18 and older. Data weighted where necessary by age, gender, and region, to be nationally representative.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RNZ News
2 days ago
- RNZ News
Country Life: Harnessing the power of plants to combat vineyard threats
Michelle Thompson in her lab at Plant & Food Research in Lincoln Photo: Craig Robertson Follow Country Life on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts. Are some grapevines better at naturally defending themselves from a disease-spreading pest which costs the New Zealand wine industry millions of dollars? Michelle Thompson is running trials at Plant & Food Research in Lincoln to find out. The PhD student is studying the feeding behaviour of mealybugs, tiny insects which extract sap from plants, reducing the plants' vigour and production. She wants to identify grapevine varieties which produce higher levels of defence compounds that deter the insects. Mealybug electropenetrography on grape leaves Photo: Craig Robertson Conventional vineyard practice at the moment is to use chemical insecticides, as well as removing infected plants. "It would be great to have a more natural way of managing mealybugs and protecting our vineyards, something that's more environmentally sustainable and also less costly," Thompson told Country Life . Leafroll virus damage in a Hawkes Bay vineyard Photo: Tony Corbett Leafroll virus Photo: Tony Corbett "I'm working with Citrophilus mealybugs and they are able to feed on lots of different parts of grapevines - the trunks, canes, leaves, berries and the roots." Mealybugs also transmit the Grapevine Leaf Roll Associated Virus. "This impacts the health of the vine, reduces yields and it changes the grape quality as well." Mealybug electropenetrography on grape leaves Photo: Craig Robertson In the lab, Thompson is using a technique called electropenetrography to study how the pests feed. She is working with four grapevines inside two metal cages, designed to minimise external electrical interference. The vines have differing levels of bioactive compounds in their leaves . Mealybug electropenetrography on grape leaves Photo: Craig Robertson The mealybug electropenetrography on grape leaves is conducted in faraday cages Photo: Craig Robertson "There is a plant electrode that's inserted into the potting mix of the vines and a tiny voltage is applied to the plants." A mealybug attached to an electrode is placed on the leaf of each plant. The gold conductive wire glued onto their back is light enough not to restrict their movement. Michelle brushes the dust off a mealybug before attaching the conductive wire Photo: Craig Robertson Michelle uses a microscope to attach the wire to the mealybug Photo: Craig Robertson A Mealybug moves along a grape leaf while attached to the wire Photo: Craig Robertson The technology measures electrical signals produced by insects feeding on the leaves and monitors their feeding behaviour. "I want this information on mealybug feeding behaviour to be able to inform breeding of rootstock varieties, so we can breed varieties that are resistant to mealybug feeding and therefore reduce virus transmission in our vineyards." The project, Smart Adaptive Rootstocks for a Changing World, is funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's Endeavour Fund. Mealybug electropenetrography on grape leaves Photo: Craig Robertson Learn more:
Scoop
3 days ago
- Scoop
Alternative Alert System 'Mothballed' Despite Benefits
The founder of an alternative emergency alert framework says officials never gave it a look-in when they were setting up the under-fire Emergency Mobile Alert system. And he reckons his was better, proving its worth during the aftermath of the Christchurch quakes. The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) is investigating glitches in the current system following the magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia on Wednesday. Some Kiwis say they received up to 50 alerts, while some did not receive any at all. Matthew Nolan founded an alternative system, Readynet, which was used during the Christchurch Earthquakes and to mobilise volunteers cleaning up the Rena oil spill. "I think that the NEMA system - which costs them the best part of $20 million - has miscued for them, and it's certainly not the first time," he told Morning Report on Friday. "There is a record of it waking people up at night for messages that were text messages only, and as well as circumstances where people did not get the alert that they should have got." NEMA spokesperson John Price told Checkpoint on Thursday there were many reasons for the differences. "It could be different providers and different cell towers. There's a lot of possibilities, but this is something we're working through. We'll look into it, absolutely." Nolan criticised the NEMA system as being "one-way" only, and unable to tell if people had actually received the message as no information was sent back. "Whereas other systems and a better system, and yes, our system was interactive, and we could see where the messages had been received. "So for example, you send a message out into an area where there's a big river and cell towers have been wiped out. Our system would tell you that all the people in that river have not received the message - all the people in that river valley have not received the message. You can deduct from that, that in fact, the cell phone towers are out." He claimed the Emergency Mobile Alert system "can't target messages". "It's a modern equivalent of a World War 2 fire siren. It alerts people that something's happening and it gives them a brief message, but it can't target messages. "So for example… people in Upper Hutt got no message. In Lower Hutt, lots of people got the message. So, you know, why is there a difference between one area and another?" According to the NEMA website, the current system can "broadcast to all capable phones from targeted cell towers to areas affected by serious hazards". "You may not receive an alert if you are out of mobile coverage, mobile phone towers are damaged, or there is a power outage." Price said the variation in coverage "could be different providers and different cell towers, there's a lot of possibilities". Nolan suggested the system was not working as well as it could because it was now owned by "a banking conglomerate out of New York". New Zealand's system was provided by Dutch company one2many, which is now a division of Everbridge Public Warning, an American software company that specialises in alert systems. "Now, those sorts of companies are chasing the big markets, the multi-million markets, and I think New Zealand is a very small end of that market," Nolan said. "There is no office of that organisation in Wellington to work alongside emergency services in New Zealand… "I think that a New Zealand-owned, developed, supported, helpdesked system is the best, and that's what we had built, and our system is now mothballed." He said he asked officials to look at using Readynet for the national system, but "they never ever fully examined what we had, even though it was used during Christchurch to communicate after the Christchurch earthquake, to communicate with all the residents and contractors left inside the cordons. "And that was, information such as, well, 'The cordon will be open on the corner of such and such street at four o'clock this afternoon to allow people in and out for shopping there.' That's the sort of stuff you can't put on Facebook." As of Friday morning, a tsunami advisory remained in place. Pacific nations emerged relatively unscathed.
RNZ News
3 days ago
- RNZ News
Thousands bank more than $1 million in Sharesies and Hatch
Thousands of New Zealanders now have more than $1 million saved in online DIY investing accounts. Sharesies co-founder Leighton Roberts said this week that the investing platform now has more than 1500 portfolios with more than $1 million invested. Fewer than 100 of them included KiwiSaver. "It has escalated over the last 12 months," he said. "Particularly as markets recovered. Quite a few people bought in quite heavily during the turmoil earlier this year." He said he was surprised by the holdings of the larger portfolios. "Across that group there's 1100 different instruments being held, which is way more than I would have expected for portfolios this size." He said while funds were the majority of most Sharesies' investors' portfolios, those with $1m-plus balances had invested heavily directly in companies such as Tesla , Rocket Lab, Nvidia, Infratil, Xero, Meridian, Ryman, Air New Zealand and Fonterra. "It's probably half and half New Zealand and US shares … way fewer ETFs than normally makes up a portfolio. I guess these people have gone in with quite high conviction." Some could be people who were being given shares from companies they worked for, such as Xero and Meridian, he said. "In general, the larger portfolios on our platform look to be making quite conviction-based decisions." Some might have built up their investments over a long period, he said, and some transferred into Sharesies. "Some like Rocket Lab and Nvidia have seen such big price rises that the actual buy-in didn't need to be that huge to hit these numbers. My daughter I think is up 1000 percent on Rocket Lab although that unfortunately is nowhere near $1 million." He said it was good to see confidence in investing growing. Waimarie Marks, managing director of Hatch and Invest Direct said there were just over 1200 portfolios with more than $1m on her platforms. She said investing platforms had been around for long enough that people had become comfortable with them. "It's the ability of people to have optionality over a longer period of time. We saw a big boom in 2021, and 2020 with Covid too then it mellowed out a bit but with the economic conditions and interest rates changing again , having the ability to invest in something that can be bigger than what we've normally had access to - that's what is driving it. There are multiple market options for products, fixed interest, all those things allowing people to do more." Thousands of New Zealanders now have more than $1 million invested through online platforms like Sharesies and Hatch. Photo: Supplied/123rf She said people were educating themselves about investment and using AI. "It's easier to consume now, it's not as scary." Dean Anderson, founder of Kernel Wealth, said he had some customers with tens of millions of dollars in their accounts who were looking for cost-effective or DIY options for the investments. "We see this as a growing category - driven by those looking for a long-term, digital-first, tax and fee efficient way to manage intergenerational wealth. Feeding into this is also our wider Kiwi success, where there are so many outstanding companies and startups having success, being sold, and creating a new generation of wealth in New Zealand. This first generation of material wealth are looking for a different solution compared to the past." He said older generations had the bulk of the wealth but there was also a "first wave" of inheritances coming through to their children. "They're receiving some assets and going 'what do we do with this now'. They're much more in control, looking for a more digital-led solution. They want choice. "It generally surprised me, the size of the accounts. The balances we're talking about, I would have assumed 12 months ago those accounts would have an adviser but they don't. They may be setting up their own structure, managing it themselves - people with multimillion-dollar accounts are well informed and making their own decisions." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
