What happened
In 2023 MediaWorks New Zealand suffered a cyberattack in which the personal information of around 403,000 people — collected largely through online competitions — was taken, and some individuals were directly targeted for extortion [rnz-mediaworks].
Timeline
- 2023-05 — Cyberattack on a MediaWorks competition database [rnz-mediaworks].
- 2023-06 — Confirmed ~403,000 people affected; extortion attempts reported [rnz-mediaworks].
Current status
Reported and investigated; NZ’s limited privacy-penalty regime meant no financial penalty. Figures are as reported. [rnz-mediaworks]
Why it matters
A widely-felt New Zealand breach that fuelled debate over the country’s “toothless” privacy enforcement.