LAST UPDATE | 24 Jun 2023

IRELAND MUST WORK with the European Union to prevent much-needed cyber security software on everyday products driving prices up for Irish consumers, the head of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said.

The Irish cyber security sector has previously mooted that it would look at setting a standard for cybersecurity. 

As much of the devices we use on a daily basis now require computers and are often connected to the internet there is also a need for cyber security. 

The issue is that Ireland’s market is tiny – and any effort to introduce a set standard for Ireland would simply be too expensive to implement. If it was set by the EU then the impact on consumers would be less given the size of the EU economy. 

Dr Richard Browne, speaking to The Journal today in Cork, said the secret to solving the problem of hacking and other online crimes is in the hands of not just businesses but in individual Irish citizens.

Browne warned that if Ireland seeks to set a standard on businesses alone that it will mean that it will cause a massive increase in cost for consumers.

Yesterday the NCSC released its 2022 National Cyber Risk Assessment which identified a number of factors putting Irish people at risk. 

That report warned that threats are a “permanent fixture of today’s society” and added that the threat posed by criminals, as seen by the 2021 HSE cyber attack, “have remained “virtually the same”.

The report also outlines the need to protect critical national infrastructure, including the energy, financial services, healthcare, and transport sectors.

Browne, who spoke to this website after a panel discussion at the Consultative Forum on International Security, said the key is individual resilience, in other words that each irish citizen can have an impact on cyber security. 

The NCSC had earlier recommended that Tik Tok not be used on Government phones.

The threat, he said, was in cloud computing, in the supply chain and online based service providers but that consumers were now also under threat on their personal devices such as phones.

“We are working with the European Union and developing things there and domestically on supply chain security.

“Ensuring what you have, what you use does what it is supposed to do and ensuring that bad people aren’t doing anything with it and can’t be used for anything for other things. 

“There is a whole of society problem developing here and will take time to implement,” he added. 

EU Level

In a previous interview with The Journal Browne had said the centre were examining ways to have a standard of cyber security on all devices in Ireland. 

He said he believes that the only way to achieve that with measures at EU level. 

“The other piece here is how we do this, how we get into customers and producers hands is really, really important. 

“It is very challenging and we are a small country so we have to do that through European mechanisms.

“We’ll never sway global businesses ourselves, all we will do is drive up prices for Irish consumers or ensure that Irish consumers don’t have access to the latest 

Brigadier General Seán White, Director, Cyber Defence, EU Military Staff spoke during the event about how the current situation in Ukraine around Russian cyber attacks had informed what the irish Defence Forces need to do to ensure security of their systems.

He said Irish military are increasingly dependent on civilian critical infrastructure and that they believe that cloud computing has been identified as a major risk.

He referenced the impact of the recent Russian attack on the KA-SAT cyber attack which was targeted on Ukrainian military communications but it also affected German electricity. 

“In conflicts cyber attacks are becoming a ubiquitous and routine feature and there are unintended consequences, like in the KA SAT satellite attack.

“That was ostensibly aimed at the Ukrainian military however there were downstream effect against wind power turbines in Germany. 

“So a key learning from the Ukrainian war is the segregation and better security for the physical and digital infrastructure but having said that there is an interdependency causes a high risk of an damage to civilian and military networks. 

“The EU needs closer military and State cooperation in cyberspace to become stronger security providers for citizens,” he added.