Cyber attacks on businesses expected to surge in 2022

Irish businesses are showing increasing concerns over the prospect of further cyber attacks in the near future, new research has suggested.

According to research gathered from the tax, audit and advisory firm PricewaterhouseCooper (also known as PwC Ireland) as part of its Global Digital Trust Insights Study, just under two-thirds (62%) of Irish businesses "expect cyber crime to increase in 2022."

The study, which involved 3,600 participants, noted that a rise in ransomware attacks is feared most, followed by an increase in malicious malware.

It also found that fewer than two in five Irish corporate leaders have a "high understanding of the risk of data breaches through third parties," while one quarter have "little or no understanding at all of these risks", with 29% professing to having an understanding of cloud risks.

Commenting on the findings, Pat Moran, PwC Ireland’s head of cyber security, said that  fewer businesses are responding to the "escalating threats that complex business models pose."

PwC Ireland also pointed out that says that 62% of Irish companies expect a jump in attacks on their cloud services, while only 29% profess to have an understanding of cloud risks.

To add to the issue, the research found that overly complex IT systems in Irish companies are getting in the way of security protection: three-quarters (76%) of executive respondents blame "data governance" for being an area of "unnecessary and avoidable complexity, while the "cloud environment" (72%) and "data infrastructure" (62%) come next on the problem list.

With Ireland recently seeing a number of cyberattacks on the Health Service Executive (HSE), it appears that the topic of cybersecurity will soon become a more potent one for our society in the near future.