Enterprise Ireland: Irish cybersecurity are firms making a big global impression

Given the fact that Ireland has an established reputation as being a global tech hub, it will come as no surprise that Irish tech companies are going from strength to strength in the international cybersecurity sector, with a growing reputation as being a global leader in this sector, which focuses on mitigating and managing threats to online systems.

The calibre of Irish companies coming through the ranks is increasingly innovative and competitive, and the local ecosystem is constantly building its core capabilities and supporting the development of these firms.

Much of this is due to Government investment in the Irish cyber sector, and Enterprise Ireland supports 60 companies in the cyber cluster here. Together, these have over $300m (€285m) in annual revenue.

That support is not the only driver, however. Today’s growth can also be attributed to the convergence of well-aligned initiatives and collaboration from industry, academia and Government.

Smart government funding combined with innovative thinking is paying all sorts of dividends for the best-in-class cyber startups. While most countries in the world saw their cybersecurity skills gap growing in 2022 (on average by 26.2pc), Ireland closed that gap by 19.5pc.

Last week, 12 leading Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) from North America and from organisations such as Disney, SunLife Financial and Microsoft Canada visited Ireland for the Enterprise Ireland Cyber Summit 2023.

During the three-day summit, which began in Galway before moving to Dublin, the CISOs got to meet representatives of 16 leading Irish cyber companies, from early-stage builders to multinational businesses. In fact, there were 95 separate one-to-one meetings between North American and Irish delegates over the three days.

The Irish businesses attending included Tines, which helps to fight the cyber skills shortage through its innovative security automation solution. Other Irish data security and risk management specialists also took part including Cytidel, Oblivious, Vaultree and GetVisibility. On the application, network and cloud security front, Waratek and Stryve led the way, while Siren led representation of Ireland’s threat detection and response specialists.

Other Irish companies that participated included 4Securitas, Corrata, Daon, Edgescan, Privacy Engine, Smarttech 247, Threatscape and Velona Systems.

Also attending were organisations such as Cyber Ireland, Cyber Skills and the National Cyber Security Centre. The visiting delegation also included CISOs from Ceridian, AppFire, Ruby Life, ISA Cybersecurity, Hummingbird, Black Rifle Coffee, Cyber Risk Alliance and Proofpoint.

This was the first year the Cyber Summit coincided with the Cyber Ireland National Conference, and this meant the US and Canadian delegates were also able to benefit from sessions with leading speakers from the US Department of Homeland Security, the Irish National Cyber Security Centre, Accenture and others.

Having attended an event at the Enterprise Ireland-funded Portershed incubator in Galway on the first day of the summit, the delegates also got to visit Trinity College Dublin on the final day for events and networking at the Tangent workspace there.

Claire Walsh is Senior Vice President, Digital Technologies (East Coast), Enterprise Ireland