Accenture claims that “Ireland is a cybersecurity powerhouse”, with almost three in ten businesses classes as ‘leaders’ in cybersecurity.

The business consultancy carried out a global study among 4,600 enterprise security experts, and their verdict was that Ireland shows up as the country with the highest proportion of cybersecurity leaders, defined as those who take the initiative in preventing and defending against cyberattacks.

The State of Cyber Resilience Study explores the extent to which organisations prioritise security, the effectiveness of their security efforts, and the impact of new security-related investments.

Security managing director Jacky Fox  (pictured) said: “Our analysis identifies a group of stand-out organisations in Ireland that appears to have cracked the code of cybersecurity when it comes to best practices. Leaders in our survey are far quicker at detecting a breach, mobilising their response, minimising the damage and getting operations back to normal.”

From detailed modelling of security performance, the study identified a group of elite leaders, 28% in Ireland, 17% globally, who achieve significantly better results from their cybersecurity investments than other organisations. 

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Leaders were characterised as among the highest performers in at least three of the following categories: stop more attacks; find breaches faster; fix breaches faster; and reduce breach impact. The study identified a second group, comprising 59% of Irish respondents (74% globally), as ‘non-leaders’ — average performers in terms of cyber-resilience, but far from being idle.

The leaders are nearly four times more effective in stopping targeted cyberattacks.

According to Accenture, they have a threefold advantage. They were four times more likely than non-leaders to detect a breach in less than one day, at 88% versus 22%. When defences fail, 55% of leaders in Ireland fixed breaches in 15 days or less, on average, while 34% of breaches in Ireland had no impact at all.

Fox added: “When a cyberattack prevents a pharmaceutical company from manufacturing drugs or a ship from docking at port — those are the kinds of crippling business impacts we’re most concerned about helping our clients avoid. At a time of great global uncertainty organisations must take every step possible to minimise any negative impacts.

“Deferred decisions and delayed actions have immediate and longer-term business continuity impacts. If investments in technology don’t hit the mark when it comes to defending against cyberattacks, C-suite executives are not only jeopardising their operations and finances but their brands and reputations as well.”

Among the other conclusions were: 

• Leaders were nearly three times as likely to provide users of security tools with required training for those tools.
• Leaders were nearly three times less likely to have had more than 500,000 customer records exposed through cyberattacks in the last 12 months.
• Leaders focused more of their budget on sustaining what they already have, whereas non-leaders place more emphasis on piloting and scaling new capabilities.

Investment in security is growing, the study found, with the number of global leaders spending more than 20% of IT budgets on advanced technology investments doubling in the last three years.

Over the last year, direct attacks to security systems were down 11%, while security breaches fell 27%. Indirect attacks against weak links in supply chains now account for 29% of security breaches in Ireland. 

It all sounds very encouraging, but the study sounds a note of warning too. One of its findings is that two-thirds of respondents said the cost of staying ahead of attackers is becoming unsustainable.

Pix: SON Photographic