The joint warning from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Britain and the United States says that a cyberattack could be mounted in retaliation for providing security assistance to Ukraine and imposing economic sanctions on Russia.

The group said cyber threats could include destructive malware, ransomware, distributed denial of service attacks, and cyber espionage.

Certain cybercrime groups, that had publicly pledged support for the Russian government have also threatened to join in these operations.

In March, US President Joe Biden had warned of malicious cyber activity, calling it "part of Russia's playbook".

NZ's intelligence agency, GCSB had previously urged New Zealand's critical businesses to stay alert in the face of increasing cyber threats.

In the advisory, the group asked cyber security watchdogs to prepare for and mitigate potential cyber threats by hardening their defences and performing due diligence in identifying indicators of malicious activity.