Ireland - Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity

Last published date: 2024-01-25

Overview

The $300 million Irish market for cybersecurity solutions and services is extremely vibrant with U.S. vendors retaining a strong presence. Reported economic crime and fraud in Ireland has increased significantly in recent years. Cybercrime is considered the most disruptive economic crime facing the business community with Grant Thornton Ireland (GTI) reporting the impact of cybercrime in Ireland at €10 billion in 2022. With its large $50 billion digital economy, Ireland is increasingly encountering cybersecurity threats that have led to a strong upsurge in spending on cyber security in both the public and private sectors. PWC’s 2024 Digital Trust Survey reveals that Irish businesses continue to increase spending on risk management technology with a focus on data analytics and process automation.

In May 2021, Ireland received a major wake-up call on cybersecurity when its health service experienced a significant ransomware attack that greatly incapacitated its operations for several months. Despite the significant disruption, the Irish government refused to address the ransom demands and Irish cybercrime agencies, working with international partners, implemented countermeasures to disrupt the activities of the attackers. The Irish government subsequently announced a package of measures to strengthen Ireland’s CS-IRT (Cyber Security Incident Response Team) - the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC).

Remote working has placed significant additional pressure on the security of corporate IT systems in Ireland especially since many remote workers utilize personal devices while working remotely. Industry studies report that more Irish organizations are investing in their cybersecurity resilience to ensure their company’s growth. Irish CEOs rank cybersecurity ahead of both AI/data science and long-term value creation in terms of critical business decisions.

Leading Sub-Sectors

Cybercrime remains the most prevalent type of fraud committed in Ireland and is three times more disruptive than the global norm. Hiscox’s 2023 cyber readiness report cites a 22 percent increase in the frequency of cyberattacks in Ireland with over 70 percent of Irish businesses suffering a cyberattack. In June 2023, the Irish Government published the National Cyber Risk Assessment (NCRA) which cited the systemic cyber risks faced by Ireland’s critical national infrastructure (CNI) from a range of threats such as espionage and destructive cyber-attacks. The NCRA also stressed the importance of supply chain security in digital technologies within key CNI sectors including energy, transport, financial services, healthcare and telecommunications alongside government and public sector IT systems that deliver many of these services.

Large enterprises, public sector, SMEs, remote workers and home consumers are the leading end user segments. The $50 billion digital economy encompasses 1,000 digital companies including major U.S. firms and a growing SME community. There are also 82 data centers with Hyperscale (AWS, Google, Meta, Microsoft), being the dominant data center type accounting for 77% of capacity. The life sciences, public healthcare and financial services sectors also represent strong end-user sub-segments. The national digital transformation agenda to move more public services online requires investments that ensure the data of citizens is protected. There is also heightened awareness around cybercrime among home consumers.

EU legislation around data privacy and cybersecurity is a key driving force within the sector. Alongside the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Network Information Services 2 (NIS2) Directive and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) are driving spending on cybersecurity as companies, digital service providers, critical infrastructure providers and the public-sector seek to comply with these regulations. Companies that suffer data breaches and cyber incidents in the future will be liable for heavy penalties that could amount to as much as 4 percent of a company’s global revenues.

Opportunities

The ongoing threat of cyber-attacks is driving increased spending on security solutions. Opportunities exist to provide cybersecurity solutions and services to large corporations, SMEs and public-sector organizations. The most significant opportunities are to be found in organizations for which IT security is mission critical, such as major financial institutions, utilities, and government departments. With cybercriminals increasingly seeking to breach automated industrial systems, Operational Technology (OT) attacks are likely to continue their upward trend with securing legacy OT systems of particular concern. Solutions utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have a growing market share within the CNI segment.

Preparedness for cybercrime in Ireland is increasing with many companies performing cyber-attack vulnerability risk assessments. However, while extremely vigilant in the search for fraud, Irish organizations have been slow to invest in technologies related to fraud prevention, detection, and authentication. Most economic crimes in Ireland are detected through corporate controls including fraud risk assessments, suspicious transaction reporting and corporate security.

U.S. cybersecurity vendors have been playing a leading role in the Irish market. Irish distributors, systems integrators (SIs) and value-added resellers (VARs) are continually seeking to identify and source the latest innovative cybersecurity solutions from the U.S.