Thursday, March 28, 2024

Farmers not immune from scams

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More than half New Zealand’s farmers have dealt with cybercrime in the past year, with robo-calls and dodgy invoices forming the bulk of the scams. Federated Farmers president and telecommunications spokesperson Andrew Hoggard released results of the Feds’ latest rural internet survey at this year’s rural internet symposium.
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More than half New Zealand’s farmers have dealt with cybercrime in the past year, with robo-calls and dodgy invoices forming the bulk of the scams.

Federated Farmers president and telecommunications spokesperson Andrew Hoggard released results of the Feds’ latest rural internet survey at this year’s rural internet symposium.

The survey covered over 1000 rural users, spread evenly throughout NZ and included the lockdown period.

“Fifty-two percent of farmers have experienced it, with robo-calls and dodgy calls to mobiles being the main ones. Fake invoices come a very distant second, with 17% receiving them,” Hoggard said.

Three-quarters of those who have experienced it have done so in the past 12 months.

This mirrored a general increase in national cyber-crimes throughout NZ.

In other areas of the survey, Hoggard says respondents had reported that despite more RBI 2 internet investment, the rollout was not matching demand.

“We had a lot of farmers saying their service was only the same or had declined in the past 12 months. That included comments that service seemed to degrade as residential subdivision went in or rural population increased,” he said.

He says the pace of RBI 2 rollout meant it did not feel like the programme was helping as well as it should.

He noted Starlink, the Elon Musk satellite company, was very focused on selling to rural users, and could prove a good option for those farmers most isolated from other connection options.

TUANZ chief executive Craig Young says as telcos pushed the work they were doing to lift internet connectivity, the survey provided a very grounded snapshot of what real users were experiencing.

“It comes back to a comment made last year that with connectivity you just cannot stand still. It has been an issue with previous governments, to invest and stand aside, but you need to keep on investing and building on what went before,” Young said.

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