The Great New Zealand Botnet: Broadband to the Door an Asset or Security Issue?

Abstract

This research explores the level of security awareness, of domestic Internet users in New Zealand. Awareness and online security are the top priorities of the New Zealand Cyber Security Strategy, but little research has been conducted to gauge the current level of security awareness in context with common mitigation strategies. The majority of the literature on the subject is primarily focused on organisational technology security and awareness so this had to be put in context with domestic users. A sample set of Facebook friends of the researcher were asked to respond to an online survey. The survey explored the respondents' attitude and selfevaluated level of security awareness, and their awareness of a subset of mitigation strategies from the Australian Defence Signals Directorates' 'Strategies to Mitigate Targeted Cyber Intrusions'. The respondents demonstrated a good level of security awareness regarding patching and anti-virus, but there is a need for more education regarding access control and social engineering.