Despite data breaches costing an estimated €3 million globally, less than a third of Irish businesses are adequately prepared.
Despite the cost of a cyber breach, less than a third of Irish organizations have a “robust cyber recovery effort” in place, according to PwC’s 2025 Digital Trust Insights survey. However, 74% of respondents say they will prioritize cyber risk mitigation in 2025.
PwC’s annual survey surveyed more than 4,000 business and technology executives from 71 countries and found that 66% of Irish organizations expect their cyber budgets to increase next year, higher than the global average. was found to be lower than 77%.
The study revealed gaps in the implementation of cybersecurity measures in Ireland. Only 28% of companies in Japan actually implement robust cybersecurity across their organizations, lagging behind companies worldwide, and of those, 33% are highly resilient to cyberattacks.
As businesses continue to rely on third parties, third-party breaches remain the biggest cybersecurity concern for Irish businesses, details of a study reveal. This is closely followed by ransomware and cloud-related threats. Globally, the biggest threat is the cloud, followed by hacking and breach operations.
Last year, nearly three in four Irish businesses fell prey to at least one cyberattack in the past 12 months, and only a third of those companies recovered all their data after paying the ransom. Reported. Meanwhile, another study in 2023 found that nearly 20% of companies do not have a cybersecurity policy in place.
Leonard McAuliffe, cybersecurity partner at PwC Ireland, said: “Despite the high cost of a cyber breach, less than a third of Irish organizations have robust cyber resilience actions in place across their business. ” states.
“At the same time, it has said it plans to prioritize cyber risk mitigation over the next 12 months, but its planned investments have lagged behind its global peers.
“Irish businesses need to further prioritize investment in cyber risk to protect their organizations from cyber-attacks,” Mr McAuliffe said.
GenAI and regulation
Generative AI (genAI) is taking the world by storm, with many companies using AI and offering AI services. A PWC report last year found that more than half of business leaders surveyed expected generative AI to lead to “catastrophic” cyberattacks over the next 12 months.
Approximately 80% of companies worldwide increased their investments in genAI this year. Research shows that genAI has increased vulnerability to cyberattacks by 68% in the past 12 months. However, the study notes that companies are also using genAI as a defense mechanism to detect threats such as malware and phishing.
However, there are still challenges with AI, with 39% of respondents globally saying that internal stakeholders do not trust the technology and citing difficulties in integrating the technology into existing systems and processes. I emphasized.
Additionally, nearly 40% cited inadequate internal controls and risk management and a lack of standardized internal policies governing the use of genAI as notable challenges.
Meanwhile, compared to global figures, Irish respondents are less confident in their compliance with new cyber regulations such as NIS2, EU AI legislation and DORA. However, global respondents agreed that these regulations are driving increased investment in cybersecurity this year.
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