Alistair Miller: Aura Principal Advisory Consultant on survey revealing the most common offence is fraud

The latest Crime and Victims survey reveals New Zealand's most common offence is fraud. 

The Ministry of Justice has surveyed more than seven-thousand people, and it shows 10% have experienced fraud in the year to October 2023. 

66% have been scammed by unauthorised bank transactions, and 20% were scammed making online purchases. 

Cyber-security company Aura’s Principal Advisory Consultant, Alistair Miller, told Tim Beveridge “Because it’s seen as quite shameful – we ignore the statistics, don’t talk about it with our friends and family and keep quiet about it.” 

Miller said “It’s become an industrialised process – there's call centres with hundreds of people working to defraud people – and now there’s A.I to make it even more automated.” 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from news Talk ZEDB. Follow
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
One in ten kiwis have been scammed as fraud has
been revealed as the most common crime offense experienced by
New Zealanders. The latest Crime and Victims Survey says most
of this was unauthorized bank transactions and scam online purchases.
Adults and nearly three times more likely to experience fraud
and cyber crime than theft and damage. Alistair Miller is
the principal advisory consultant at digital safety company Aora, and

(00:40):
he joins me now, Alista, good morning, Good morning to him.
Are we taking cyber crime seriously enough?

Speaker 3 (00:46):
I don't think we are. I think because it's kind
of seen, is quite shameful, we tend to ignore the
statistics and don't talk about it with our friends and
family and kind of keep quiet about it.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
What's the key to getting this down? Can we actually
get it down? Or do we just need to try
and slow the rate of increase because it does seem
like it's a tough issue, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Yes, I mean it become an industrialized process. I mean
there's sort of call centers run in various countries where
hundreds of people work to DeFord people, and now with
the use of AI to make it even more automated,
it's only going to grow. So the best we can
do is educate people to try and guess when they
look like they're being attacked.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Do you actually think we can get that step down?

Speaker 3 (01:30):
It's going to be hard. It's going to be that
sort of education piece where we urge people to think
about stuff before they do it. If it seems to
be too good to be true, it almost certainly is.
So you want to do a double check before you
do anything nets safe?

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Want an anti scam center set up? Do you know
how that would look and would it make a difference?

Speaker 3 (01:49):
Well, I think that would be part of that double check.
So if you think this doesn't look right, or if
someone's called me and offered me this, I can then
go and ask them and they will go, well this
is a well known scam, or ask you to go
and double check it. So it would be a great
place for them people to go. You know, can I
just have a second opinion on things? So it will
be a good step in the right tame direction if
everyone knew to use it.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, were you surprised by the figures? Was sort of
along the lines of what I mean and the step
that the fraud is the most common, was feeling much
an expected result?

Speaker 3 (02:22):
Oh, it is. I mean, I think it's an underreported
crime because people just feel embarrassed when it becomes quite
obviously they got scammed because you don't want to share
if you've lost tens of thousands of dollars. It's so yeah, unfortunately,
it's it's kind of a tip of the iceberg thing.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Well, why isn't it? Can you report these crimes anonymously?
There is people worried about being outed as being a
sucker or something. Is that what help works?

Speaker 3 (02:45):
It is that it's you know, especially when it's kind
of you know, using sort of love or greed or
any of those kind of ones which are quite base
human emotions. People go, oh, no, I can't believe I
fell for that. It looks obvious now, but when you
were in it, it was very convincing. So yeah, people
do not want to share that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Oh well, I appreciate your time this morning. Thanks. Alistair.
That's Alistair Miller, who's principal Advisory Consountrant at AURA.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
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