Prime Minister Bill English says North Korea has likely hit New Zealand with cyber-attacks.
The Prime Minister made the comments as global suspicion rises that North Korea is behind the WannaCry attack.
While in Japan on Wednesday (NZ time), he told media he "assumes" we're targeted by North Korea.
"They're a rogue state, they do all sorts of things that most governments don't do, I assume we get those attacks," he said.
"This has been going on for some time so anything they're doing now will just be part of the ongoing attack on New Zealand systems, as there are attacks on everyone else's systems pretty much all the time."
Mr English said there was no evidence that the WannaCry attack, ransomware which crippled systems across the globe, affected New Zealand.
"Our job is to make sure we're set up as well as possible to be able to deal with such attacks," he said.
"But the experts can tell you to some extent where these attacks come from. What matters is that we're in a position to deal with them wherever they come from, because if it's not North Korea it's someone else."
The comments came after increasing suspicion about North Korea's role in WannaCry.
Nikki Haley, US Ambassador to the United Nations, said North Korea is "trying to post a threat in every way possible".
"And that is, with nuclear ability, with military ability, with the cyber attacks," she said.
North Korean hacking group Lazarus is being investigated by US security firms Symantec and Kaspersky, which say they've found clues suggesting the group created the virus.
The attack has now snared up to 300,000 victims across more than 150 countries.
Newshub.
