URGENT ADVISORY: We’re seeing a significant increase in authentication attacks this Christmas

by Andrew Hunt | Dec 29, 2025 | IT News & Insights New Zealand | Cybersecurity, AI & Microsoft Updates, Security

Significant Hacking Trend  Over this 2025/26 Christmas and New Year period, our Kinetics KARE security monitoring has detected a significant increase in sophisticated authentication attacks targeting New Zealand businesses. KARE Foundation clients are protected and...

Your Customers Need to Trust Your Emails: Here’s How DMARC 2.0 Helps

by Andrew Hunt | Dec 22, 2025 | IT News & Insights New Zealand | Cybersecurity, AI & Microsoft Updates, Security

Yet another IT acronym: “DMARC”   DMARC stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance. It’s an email authentication protocol that helps protect your domain from being used in email spoofing, phishing attacks, and...

Christmas is coming. But will you get a visit from Santa or from a grinchy hacker?

by Andrew Hunt | Dec 16, 2025 | IT News & Insights New Zealand | Cybersecurity, AI & Microsoft Updates, Security

Protecting Yourself from Cyber Threats While on Holiday We’re more vulnerable than normal to hackers at this time of year. Unfortunately, the hackers know it and tend to be more aggressive. In the rush up to Christmas, there’s normally so much to do that...

Understanding Your Microsoft Secure Score: Why Your Percentage May Drop (While Your Security Improves)

by Andrew Hunt | Dec 15, 2025 | IT News & Insights New Zealand | Cybersecurity, AI & Microsoft Updates, Security

Important Update for KARE Foundation Subscribers If you’ve noticed your Microsoft Secure Score percentage decreasing recently, don’t be alarmed. Your security hasn’t weakened.  In fact, Microsoft is making significant enhancements that will...

2025 Q4: Cyber Landscape Update (are you still feeling lucky? New Zealand’s Cyber-threat landscape demands action)

by Andrew Hunt | Nov 8, 2025 | IT News & Insights New Zealand | Cybersecurity, AI & Microsoft Updates, Security

Why This Brief Matters A cybercriminal only has to be lucky once. You have to be lucky every minute of every day. That remains the stark reality for kiwi businesses in Q4 2025. This isn’t another dry technical report filled with acronyms and alerts. Kinetics has...

SpamGPT: When AI Becomes a Phishing Playbook—And How to Protect Your Business

by Andrew Hunt | Oct 2, 2025 | AI, IT News & Insights New Zealand | Cybersecurity, AI & Microsoft Updates, Security

For years, we’ve told businesses to watch for telltale phishing signs: poor grammar, suspicious sender addresses, generic greetings. But what happens when cybercriminals have access to the same sophisticated AI tools your marketing team uses—except weaponised...