Netsafe says the biggest challenge for the new agency designed to protect businesses and infrastructure from cyber attacks, will be gaining the trust of the community it serves.

The Government is promising more than $22 million to set up the Computer Emergency Response Team or CERT, which will open early next year.

Prime Minister John Key made the announcement at the country's first ever Cyber Security conference, at Sky City in Auckland yesterday.

Netsafe Executive Director Martin Cocker said money and a name is one thing, but he said setting it up in a way that people trust and want to work with, will always be a challenge.

"It has to share sensitive information with businesses and other security professionals and other Government agencies to be effective in its job, so those agencies have to trust it with that information, they have to trust it in its ability to maintain confidentiality of that information," he said.

"Mentioning banks, they have amazing security teams already in house, so the CERT has to add some value on top of that, it has to have connections and capabilities that go beyond what those big businesses have if it's going to be engaged by them."