Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 27 March 2025
198. Deputy Malcolm Byrne asked the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform the number of actual and attempted cyberattacks on his Department during each of the years 2022, 2023 and 2024, the countries of origin of those attacks; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14696/25]
View answerMy Department implements a multi layered defence-in-depth security strategy which is achieved through the effective combination of People, Processes, and Technology to support the implementation of appropriate security measures and provisions. This defence-in-depth security strategy includes the implementation of an extensive Information Security Management System (ISMS) comprising of many security policies and controls, which is aligned and certified to the industry security standard ISO 27001:2022 to address risks from cyber security attacks. These security controls ensure that a consistent and effective approach is adhered to in the management of cyber security threats and incidents.
With the threat landscape constantly evolving, a significant effort is expended to continually enhance and strengthen ICT security to mitigate against emerging threats, risks, vulnerabilities and cybersecurity attacks. With this increased sophistication and complexity, the cyber criminals have become very proficient at masking their activity. As a result, it is not possible to determine the country of origin of attacks with any certainty. My Department is subject to continuous and ongoing cyber-attacks on an hourly basis which are intercepted at different levels of our multi layered defence-in-depth approach, including outside our perimeter. Therefore, while it is not possible to provide the exact number of cyber attacks on my Department, I can say that these routinely run to hundreds of thousands each year.
