PM says global effort needed on cyberattacks

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says a global effort to combat the rise in cyberattacks is needed, as United States President Joe Biden confronts Russia President Vladimir Putin over the harbouring of malicious hackers.

Ardern, in a discussion with members of the influential US think-tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) via video conference yesterday morning, said the recent Waikato District Health Board ransomware attack showed ‘‘how devastating’’ such attacks could be. ‘‘Cybersecurity is a space where New Zealand and the US have been working together. But I think building multilateral architecture in this space would be important, as will be the enforcement because actually it is often hard for us to identify when things are being perpetrated by state actors.’’

Ardern’s talk with the CFR comes during an intense week of global politics. ‘‘Group of 7’’ or G7 leaders held a meeting in Britain in the past week, with Biden, British leader Boris Johnson, European leaders, and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison meeting at a Cornish resort.

Biden also met with Putin in Geneva overnight, a meeting in which Biden said he discussed Putin’s failure to take action on cyber criminals launching malicious attacks from Russia.

‘‘We will find out within the next six months to a year whether or not we actually have a strategic dialogue that matters . . . We will find out whether we have a cybersecurity arrangement that begins to bring some order,’’ he said after the meeting.

Ardern was questioned by CFR members on New Zealand’s relationship with China, on cyberattacks, and domestic policies including the incorporation of wellbeing measures in Government Budgets, the 2025 smokefree goal, and gun control.

She said cyberattacks were ‘‘one of the growing challenges of our time’’. ‘‘New Zealand, not unlike other states, has recently experienced a cybersecurity attack that has impacted our healthcare system. It might be easy to assume that they could just for instance put a halt to the way that we are able to undertake some of our IT work. The effect was much greater than that, it affected people’s ability to access cancer treatment. That is how devastating some of these activities can be.’’

Asked what she thought China’s objectives were, Ardern said she thought the ‘‘changing dynamic’’ of China – its increasing assertion on the global stage – was akin to any country ‘‘who are going through rapid periods of development’’.