The New Zealand government today launched a strategy to improve the nation's security against cyber threats and crimes. The strategy involves the establishment of a National Cyber Security Center to help protect government agencies from sophisticated cyber attacks. Minister for Communications and Information Technology Steven Joyce said that cyber security was increasingly important to the public, business and the government as criminal elements is increasingly using the internet to gain access to personal information, steal businesses' intellectual property, undermine critical services and gain knowledge of sensitive government-held information for financial or other malicious purposes. A recent survey showed at least 75 percent of New Zealanders had access to the Internet. The document said 70 percent of New Zealand adults had been the targets of some form of cyber crime, with the most common complaints being computer scams, fraud and viruses and New Zealanders lost up to 500 million NZ dollars due to scams and fraud annually.