Businesses not doing enough to stay safe, says Martin Cocker

Netsafe’s executive director says cybercrime is still costing New Zealand businesses a lot of money

By Vera Alves, Auckland | Wednesday, 09 November 2011
Netsafe’s executive director Martin Cocker has been deep inside the reseller market, most recently when he worked as general manager for the Itas division at Renaissance, a role he held for five years prior to joining Netsafe in 2006.

“It was a good job, actually,” he says. He focused on the education market and says “schools are good customers”. When the opportunity came up for Cocker to join Netsafe, he took it because it sounded as interesting as it turned out to be.

Now he says he is simultaneously in the ICT industry and out of it, advising New Zealand businesses (and also consumers) on the best practises to avoid cybercrime.

According to Cocker, despite a wide range of campaigns to alert businesses to the issue, “there is still quite a bit of money being lost to cybercrime every year”. He says the global number sits at about US$388 billion lost to cybercrime and New Zealand is not far from the average.

“Not many people appreciate the impact that cybercrime can have on businesses and consumers until they are a victim of it themselves,” he says.

Despite that, Cocker has seen some evolution over the years. In fact, Netsafe itself has now evolved away from focusing fully on awareness raising to intervention and direct education. “The issues are fairly understood now. It is fair to say that people realise that the risks are there,” he says. “There is a reasonable amount of fear but that is not to say that people are taking action. Some businesses are doing a great job but the fact is that the majority isn’t.”

The evolving nature of the ICT industry means that there are also new issues arising constantly. For example, says Cocker, the BYO device phenomenon. “The BYOD has complicated things a lot. There are significant legal issues around it,” he adds.

He says securing your business from cybercrime starts with basic computer security such as firewalls and up to date patches but is now also about creating policies around ICT use within the company. “That is where a lot of SMBs fail. Very few of them think about security more broadly. The reality is that businesses need to address this and they need to be thinking about it.”

Cocker says a lot of business owners feel like security is “just a drain on business” and it is hard for them to grasp how being victim of cybercrime can result in direct financial loss for the business. “There is where they go wrong.”

In August 2010, Netsafe launched the Online Reporting Button (www.theorb.org.nz), an online tool for individuals and businesses in New Zealand to report cybercrime. “It has been growing over time and there has been a significant number of complaints made through the website,” he says, adding that it is also about creating a community.

On his job as Netsafe’s executive director, Cocker spends a lot of time handling reports, dealing with incidents and communicating with partners. He says one of his major strengths is that he is able to deal with large amounts of information and “see a path through a lot of the noise”.

He also says his “grand title” of executive director means very little because, with a team of only seven people in the office, everyone does a little bit of everything. “It’s a never-put-it-down job.”

Q+A

Where do you live now and where did you grow up?
I grew up in Whangaparaoa, on the Hibiscus Coast, and now live in Half Moon Bay.

Do you have kids?
I have two kids.

What are you currently reading?
Cybercrime reports.

Do you have a mentor or someone you admire professionally?
No one specific. I am very fortunate to be able to work with loads of capable people at Netsafe.

What advice would you give to someone in the same business as you?
Understand that it is a business where there is so much you can’t control. Don’t get upset about the ups and downs.

When you were little, what did you think you would be when you grew up?
I’m not sure I knew. I spent some time studying politics, thinking I’d get into media and become a journalist. Then I found out how much journalists earn…

Do you have a favourite sport?
I played soccer for thirty years.

What about a favourite gadget?
I don’t really have a favourite gadget. As part of our work, we have almost every gadget known to men available to us. They kind of lose their magic…

And a favourite drink?
Red Bull and vodka. It’s one of the bad habits from the IT industry…

What do you think has been the single most important advance in technology?
What transformed society was people’s ability to participate online. Call it Web 2.0, call it social media, or whatever you like. That is what really changed the world.

It is hard to keep a good balance between work/leisure?
No, it’s not hard. I have a very good board. Certainly don’t feel the struggle I felt back in the ICT days.