00:00:00
Speaker 1: New Zealand Cyber Agency is warning twenty six thousand kiwis that their computers have been infected with malicious software. The National Cybersecurity Center or NCSC, which sent out the emails today warning users about a possible infection. They say the software has stolen sensitive information connected to bank accounts and government systems. So what is it? Who got it? How do we know? Patrick Sharp, general manager of AURA Information Security, joins me. Now, Patrick, good afternoon.
00:00:28
Speaker 2: Good afternoon, So how did this?
00:00:30
Speaker 1: Can we go back to the beginning. Do we know how this malware might have got into our systems, what sort of email it or how it got in?
00:00:41
Speaker 2: So this sort of malware can actually be delivered through a range of different mechanisms. There is some mechanisms such as people going on Facebook and getting links to download aim this generation software, just malicious websites. There's one instance of the game having this in it, so it could be a variety of different means.
00:01:02
Speaker 1: So not necessarily because I always think if I don't click on any emails, then I'm not going to get in any trouble. But actually you could just go to a website and click on something and pick it up potentially yes, yeah, okay, what's the software called the malicious software? And what does it do?
00:01:17
Speaker 2: So it's called Luma Steeler and it's what's called a Steeler malware. So basically what it does is steel information. Pretty obvious. I guess that might include things I use, passwords, created a card, information, anything saved in your browser, even files from your computer.
00:01:34
Speaker 1: Is it on my phone or my hard computer laptop?
00:01:38
Speaker 2: This one seems to be affecting Windows based systems, so it'll be your computer, okay.
00:01:44
Speaker 1: And how does the government know whether my computer, my Microsoft computer has been infected?
00:01:54
Speaker 2: So nccly noted that they've been alerted to this by their partners. That presumably means that another organization overseas has actually found a trove of data which has been stolen and then has said to NCC, there's a group of email addresses here, and be concerned with how do I know.
00:02:12
Speaker 1: If I've I mean, aside from the government email I means saying, oops, you've got this. How do is there any sign that you would have this on your computer?
00:02:20
Speaker 2: No, these are this kind of software is designed to run quietly in the background, so you wouldn't know the only unless you're running antivirus software which has then detected it and hopefully cleaned up after that.
00:02:35
Speaker 1: Would antivirus software have detected.
00:02:36
Speaker 2: This I presumably. However, these the sort of malware has often changed, and so antivirus software has to continuously change in order to update and make sure it can detect new versions of it. So presumably for a period of time it wasn't detected.
00:02:57
Speaker 1: Patrick, Today we're talking about twenty three thousand email is twenty three thousand people. In ten years time we'll be talking about everyone. I mean, should we be putting any of our information, our private information anywhere on our computers or the internet generally?
00:03:13
Speaker 2: Reality, this is a huge problem, these sorts of the sort of malware and lots of data in general. But we can't simply not put our data online. So we have to become very aware of how we're actually managing our data, where we're putting it, where it's been saved, and who has access to it.
00:03:32
Speaker 1: Patrick, appreciate your time this afternoon. Thank you very much, Patrick Sharp, general manager at AURA Information Security. For more from Heather Duplicy Allen Drive, listen live to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: New Zealand Cyber Agency is warning twenty six thousand kiwis that their computers have been infected with malicious software. The National Cybersecurity Center or NCSC, which sent out the emails today warning users about a possible infection. They say the software has stolen sensitive information connected to bank accounts and government systems. So what is it? Who got it? How do we know? Patrick Sharp, general manager of AURA Information Security, joins me. Now, Patrick, good afternoon.
00:00:28
Speaker 2: Good afternoon, So how did this?
00:00:30
Speaker 1: Can we go back to the beginning. Do we know how this malware might have got into our systems, what sort of email it or how it got in?
00:00:41
Speaker 2: So this sort of malware can actually be delivered through a range of different mechanisms. There is some mechanisms such as people going on Facebook and getting links to download aim this generation software, just malicious websites. There's one instance of the game having this in it, so it could be a variety of different means.
00:01:02
Speaker 1: So not necessarily because I always think if I don't click on any emails, then I'm not going to get in any trouble. But actually you could just go to a website and click on something and pick it up potentially yes, yeah, okay, what's the software called the malicious software? And what does it do?
00:01:17
Speaker 2: So it's called Luma Steeler and it's what's called a Steeler malware. So basically what it does is steel information. Pretty obvious. I guess that might include things I use, passwords, created a card, information, anything saved in your browser, even files from your computer.
00:01:34
Speaker 1: Is it on my phone or my hard computer laptop?
00:01:38
Speaker 2: This one seems to be affecting Windows based systems, so it'll be your computer, okay.
00:01:44
Speaker 1: And how does the government know whether my computer, my Microsoft computer has been infected?
00:01:54
Speaker 2: So nccly noted that they've been alerted to this by their partners. That presumably means that another organization overseas has actually found a trove of data which has been stolen and then has said to NCC, there's a group of email addresses here, and be concerned with how do I know.
00:02:12
Speaker 1: If I've I mean, aside from the government email I means saying, oops, you've got this. How do is there any sign that you would have this on your computer?
00:02:20
Speaker 2: No, these are this kind of software is designed to run quietly in the background, so you wouldn't know the only unless you're running antivirus software which has then detected it and hopefully cleaned up after that.
00:02:35
Speaker 1: Would antivirus software have detected.
00:02:36
Speaker 2: This I presumably. However, these the sort of malware has often changed, and so antivirus software has to continuously change in order to update and make sure it can detect new versions of it. So presumably for a period of time it wasn't detected.
00:02:57
Speaker 1: Patrick, Today we're talking about twenty three thousand email is twenty three thousand people. In ten years time we'll be talking about everyone. I mean, should we be putting any of our information, our private information anywhere on our computers or the internet generally?
00:03:13
Speaker 2: Reality, this is a huge problem, these sorts of the sort of malware and lots of data in general. But we can't simply not put our data online. So we have to become very aware of how we're actually managing our data, where we're putting it, where it's been saved, and who has access to it.
00:03:32
Speaker 1: Patrick, appreciate your time this afternoon. Thank you very much, Patrick Sharp, general manager at AURA Information Security. For more from Heather Duplicy Allen Drive, listen live to news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio,
