Ireland is not ready for a cyber attack on the State, business fears

THE vast majority of Irish businesses do not believe Ireland is prepared for a cyber attack, although two-thirds believe such breaches are a risk to their operations.

A survey of Independent.ie readers showed 94pc of respondents believe we are not prepared for a cyber attack on the State.

However 74pc of respondents said they have a staff training or awareness programme in place in a bid to prevent data and cyber breaches in their businesses and organisations.

The survey was conducted ahead of Dublin Information Sec 2018, Ireland’s cyber security conference, which takes place next Monday, and at a time of increased awareness of State-sponsored attacks as well as the damage that can be done to businesses.

The results of the survey also showed two-thirds of firms believe the recently introduced General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) puts cyber security on the agenda at boardroom level. The GDPR is an EU regulation designed to strengthen and unify data protection within the EU which was introduced in May.

And 66pc of respondents say they are already compliant with the rules while a further 30pc are still in the process of compliance.

Awareness of the implications of GDPR on businesses is high, the survey of more than 100 readers showed, while 62pc said they understood the benefits of the new rules.

Cyber security should be top of the agenda for all companies, and Ireland needs to be especially vigilant because so many multinationals have their headquarters here, according to Mikko Hypponen, who is the keynote speaker at Dublin Information Sec 2018.

“Cybersecurity is especially important in Ireland, as so many global technology companies have their European operations based there,” said Hypponen, who is a computer security and privacy issues specialist, who has been credited with tracking down the authors of the very first PC virus. “Today, every company is a software company.”

For today only, a 25pc discount is available on tickets for the conference at Dublin’s RDS on Monday.

See independent.ie/infosec18 for tickets and more information. Dublin Information Sec 2018 is an Independent News & Media event.