The cyber security situation is "already worse" than believed late last year, the director of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), Richard Browne has said.
In December, an assessment from the NCSC found Ireland was at increased risk of cyber attacks.
Mr Browne said aspects of that document are already out of date.
"This assessment was written in October/November of last year – since then, we've seen a dramatic rise in AI-enabled attacks," he said.
"So already aspects of this [assessment] have come true, and it’s already worse than we thought."
'It’s a race’
Mr Browne said they are in a constant race against bad actors.
"Because cyber is embedded in every single system, every process we use in our daily lives, we can be implicated in an action in a huge number of ways," he said.
"Healthcare, energy, automotive manufacturing – those are the easy ones – every aspect of Government, every aspect of our telecom system.
"Every aspect of every part of our daily lives are now mediated through the network, so they’re affectable to some extent by cyber means.
"It’s a race and it’s a race that is happening all the time with serious consequences."
Cyber espionage
Mr Browne said cyber espionage – the stealing of information from systems by entities – is happening here.
He said while the State has not assigned any blame, they can see where it is coming from.
"We see cyber espionage on a very, very regular basis, particularly in Government but also elsewhere," he said.
"We’ve never formally attributed a cyber incident – the Minister for Foreign Affairs has never formally stood up and said, ‘Country X has done this to us’.
"We can see [where it’s coming from]."
However, Mr Browne said more is being done to help combat the threats.
"Later on this year we will have a new bill, which will empower the NCSC to do much more in this space," he said.
"Thereafter we’ll have a new national cyber security, which will look – based on the risk assessment – what we need to do in the next three to five years, where do we need to position ourselves to be ready."
Mr Browne said there are plans to increase the headcount of the NCSC.
New tools for SMEs
One of the key challenges faced by the NCSC is providing support to the SME sector.
Mr Browne said a new website will be available shortly to provide support for companies.
"We run a series of groups we call cores – coordination and response groups – across critical infrastructure," he explained.
"We’ve a new SME core which is a different way of approaching this problem of providing guidance, support and assistance to SMEs.
"That core will have a new website shortly with a series of free tools SMEs can use to assess their own risks and suggest the measures they should be taking to protect themselves."
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