Tech leaders in Ireland sceptical of national cybersecurity strategy

A new survey from IT firm Paradyn found that 91% of IT leaders believe the Irish national cybersecurity strategy is not appropriate for the current threat environment. The vast majority of 105 IT decision makers who responded to the survey reported that the recent high-profile cyber attack on the Irish health system, HSE, is partly to blame for the lack of trust in the government strategy.

Since the HSE disruption, 88% of company boards and leadership team members say they are more worried about ransomware attacks. Almost all (97%) leaders in tech believe more attacks like the HSE threat are likely to happen over the next year against high-profile public services bodies.

According to Cillian McCarthy, chief executive officer of Paradyn, the major disruption caused by the HSE attack not only significantly damaged the ability of Ireland’s healthcare system to effectively operate but it also resulted in acute service interruptions for both healthcare workers and citizens.

“Worryingly, the overwhelming majority of technology leaders believe more attacks on other public sector organisations are imminent. In addition to this, most also believe that our national cybersecurity strategy is not capable of meeting these growing threats,” says McCarthy.

While respondents believed the best-prepared industries against cybercrime are financial services (96%), professional services (85%) and pharmaceutical (80%), only 67% say education is well equipped, as well as 77% saying hospitality and tourism are prepared. Concerningly, the majority (52%) of IT leaders say employees access or store company data on unsecured personal devices.

“It’s imperative that all those responsible for securing government, business and citizen data take a more holistic and joined up approach, or further wide-scale disruption is inevitable in Ireland,” he adds