Cyber security experts are warning people to be extra vigilant this Easter weekend, with new phishing scams circulating across the country.
They’re targeting people’s mobile phones and purporting to be from local banks, NZ Post and Waka Kotahi NZTA.
Fake text messages, claiming to be the organisations, are popping up, urging people to pay overdue toll fees.
It takes them to websites that look legitimate, but aren't.
"They are definitely clever, they will go out, and they will look for the exact resources from the NZTA transport association website or from the bank's websites, and they'll copy them,” Cert NZ’s Jordan Heerspring said.
He told 1News that public holidays are a particularly dangerous time when it comes to phishing.
“The people doing this sort of thing will use that kind of topical event to try to get people to do stuff, and there are a few of these campaigns going around NZ at the moment, and they'll be using things like the postage fees, they'll be using NZTA type things, after your registration."
“Public holidays are always different, and it's also different for us from a perception point of view. We are busy with family; we are planning dinner and stuff like that. So a text message like that might slip through more easily,” information security expert Joerg Buss said.
They’re already slipping through, with Kiwis telling 1News they’ve been offered prizes and told their computers are broken.
Many of the latest scams pretend to be banks - one, pretending to be from ANZ, asks people to confirm a transaction, and another asks recipients to update their contact details.
“This type of scam is very widespread; the people who do it are opportunistic, they go as wide as they can - it's not targeted,” Heerspring said.
There are now calls for banks to stop contacting people by phone altogether.
“Banks started at some point, and the Government started at some point sending text messages to their customers, and we need to stop that,” Buss said.
"Because it's not a secure communication way, and I, just last week, got another text message with a link from an NZ Government agency, and as long as we do that, the normal user can't differentiate between what is fake and what is a real text message.”
If people aren’t sure, the advice is to double-check.
"If you get unexpected messages like this, that should be raising suspicion straight away; you can always go straight to the service provider. So if you get a message from NZ Post, you can go to them and say, ‘Hey, I received this message. Is it legitimate?’” Heerspring said.
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