Results 641-660 of 2,990 for speaker:Ossian Smyth

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: There definitely were people in the HSE who were working on cybersecurity. They were in a much stronger position a year ago than they were two years previously. They had been working closely with the NCSC to improve their security. They had been carrying out risk assessments. It is an enormous and complex organisation, however. There are 100,000 staff, one third of whom are contractors....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: They have made enormous progress. They had already made enormous progress before the attack. Obviously, the attack has brought into focus the importance of the HSE's IT infrastructure. We saw happened when its information systems were down. Hospitals were able continue to function, but everything was much slower. I understand that, for example, people in accident and emergency departments...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: I thank Senator Horkan.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: I will start with the question about waiting lists. Waiting lists are an operational matter for the HSE and a strategic matter for the Department of Health. They are outside of my remit to some extent. From an IT point of view, a waiting list attaches to a particular consultant and consultants are attached to particular hospitals. This means that there are multiple waiting lists around...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: The Senator is right. There was an enormous patriotic response from security researchers, members of the HSE and medical staff. They assembled in an emergency room in the ballroom of the Citywest Hotel and they worked day and night for weeks on end until they were exhausted to try to fix these systems because they knew it was a life and death situation. I went to visit them out there with...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: This point is about providing a statutory basis for what we do. We have the rule of law. We are dealing with people who are criminals. We want to ensure that what we are doing has a sound legal basis and that we are not descending to their level. The idea is to ensure that we have an absolutely solid legal basis for everything we are doing and that people responding to the NCSC know that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: The heads of the Bill have not been published yet. There is a reference, however, to whether we need to provide for some intelligence capacity in this regard and some legal underpinning to that. It is not possible to gather information without having some kind of legal basis to do that in the first place. The role of the NCSC is to disrupt attacks. I refer to a situation where a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: I do not think there is any recommendation for offensive capacity. There is a line there. I would not, however, rule out the ability to be able to disrupt an attack. It is a different situation when you are being attacked and you need to defend yourself and disable the attacking party. It is a different context from getting up in the morning and attacking somebody else.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: The role of An Garda Síochána is clear. The members of the force carry out criminal investigations. This is another area where many crimes are now starting to occur and where it will be necessary for the Garda to operate in. My experience is that the members of the force are very skilled in this area. At least one garda is posted in the NCSC. The Garda carried out forensic...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: Again, the Defence Forces have one person posted within the NCSC. There is co-operation with other military intelligence people and-or with people working in cyberdefence to protect military installations from being attacked. Cyberattack can, in addition to land, sea and air attacks, be seen as a fourth vector of attack. Any modern military force must have a defensive capacity in this...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: The involvement of people from academia is critical because they are at the cutting edge of knowledge which is constantly changing. We need people who are researchers and keeping up with the changing technology. We also need to have third level institutions educating people who will be the cybersecurity staff of the future. Many academics helped us to deal with the cyberattack on the HSE....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: A European directive tells us that we must have a list of critical infrastructure organisations or operators of essential services and keep track of what is included on it. It is not always that obvious. Electricity and water service providers are included, but we might not think about many other essential parts of the economy in the same way. What we do is to provide those organisations...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: I thank the Chair. One must look at this in the context of a sixfold increase in cyberattacks in the past two years. Any organisation that faces a sixfold increase in its workload will without doubt be challenged and it cannot magic skilled staff out of nowhere no matter how much money is available. The report absolutely did not say that the NCSC was unfit for purpose but that it needed...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: I do not think that it is fair at all. I have read the report and really do not see it saying that the centre is structurally unfit for purpose but certain recommendations were made. We knew that the NCSC needed more resources in response to an escalating threat and escalating workload. That is why we commissioned the report to see where should the money be spent and where should the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: All of those machines will have to be upgraded at some point. Some of them are connected to very large, expensive legacy pieces of hardware, such as MRI machines or X-ray devices, which cannot cope with the newer versions of Windows software. In a large portion of the cases, perhaps half, that is the reason the Windows 7 computers are there. That involves either the manufacturer of the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: I am sure that is something Mr. Paul Reid is looking at. I think that was part of the Estimates, that Mr. Reid mentioned a figure of €100 million for the remediation of his network. Certainly, part of that will refer to Windows 7. They are well capable of doing a strategy and having an upgrade path. However, there is too much focus on upgrading the Windows 7 computers. It is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: Part of that will be decided in the coming weeks in the budget discussions. There have been estimates of what was needed for this year. There was a large increase in the cybersecurity budget last year. Overall, the NCSC's budget is a small portion of the cybersecurity expenditure to protect the State. All the money that is spent on cybersecurity to protect Ireland's national...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: Yes, I do, and the Government accepts them as well.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: Yes, we are.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: National Cyber Security Centre Review: Discussion (22 Sep 2021)

Ossian Smyth: There are two parts to it. There is a capital budget and a current budget. The total budget between capital and current was approaching €7 million. For next year, 2022, that will be the subject of discussion with the Ministers for Public Expenditure and Reform and the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputies Michael McGrath and Eamon Ryan, respectively, who will agree how...