ONE HUNDRED YEARS of a benign relationship with foreign powers has left Ireland vulnerable to cyber attacks, the State’s Cyber Chief has said.

In an exclusive interview with The Journal, Dr Richard Browne spoke about the current risks and threats, how the war in Ukraine has reduced the likelihood of large scale cyber attacks across Europe, and how his team are working to prevent future attacks on major infrastructure.

From the outset he makes it clear that the biggest threat to Ireland’s cyber security, both on a national basis and across the business sector, is from criminal organisations.

As previously reported by this website, the HSE ransomware attack was perpetrated by a criminal organisation.

Obviously that level of hacking is on a very large scale but there has also been an increase in the number of lower level attacks that result in people’s personal information being stolen.

Using strong passwords and regularly changing them, and using malware protection software can help protect your information from being hacked.

We want to know: Do you take precautions against cyber attacks?