Results 661-680 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: The Deputy said the attack happened because of a lack of capacity. I want to see the two reports that are coming out before I make a decision on the view I will take on what caused the attack. I will allow that time to see what happened. The Deputy mentioned the UK and its £2 billion spend. There is also the United States. The Deputy has to accept that those countries, with their...

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

Ossian Smyth: I do not have the final report stating what caused the attack. Other countries which had a far larger spend or a far broader security apparatus would be subjected to the same kinds of attacks. When the NCSC warned that there could be a ransomware attack on Irish healthcare, that was in response to 16 US hospitals that had been taken down by ransomware attackers, so it is an increasing...

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

Ossian Smyth: Yes, absolutely. This kind of attack is easy to originate. You can originate it from any part of the world and direct it suddenly from one continent to another. You cannot defend against it without co-operation, so it absolutely requires co-operation between like-minded nations to deal with it. During the response to the ransomware attack on the HSE, we were contacted by the Polish...

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

Ossian Smyth: The Deputy is absolutely right. There is no intention to try to provide a central protection for all State bodies from 70 people working in Dublin who will offer some kind of centralised support across all these organisations. It has to be distributed. Most of the effort and work to protect people will have to happen in a distributed way at the site where people are trying to protect...

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

Ossian Smyth: I am not aware of any cybersecurity centre in the world that is run by the military. Ours is not run by the military, although it has military assistance and that is a very valuable input. On the director's salary and whether there is enough money to pay that person, the job of the director who will be appointed on a salary of €184,000 is not directly equivalent to a chief...

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

Ossian Smyth: In short, we will bring in experts. It was the plan to bring in experts for this process. The board also has expertise but we will bring in external experts in this area. I will go back to Senator Craughwell's question. He mentioned the idea that we should have some kind of overall head of all the different parts of cybersecurity and cyberdefence across the different branches of the...

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

Ossian Smyth: In terms of the security incident with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, his phone was encrypted and the security incident was reported to the NCSC. I assure the Senator that the centre took it extremely seriously and as a matter of national security because of his position as Minister for Foreign Affairs. In no regard was this treated as a trivial matter. All of the...

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

Ossian Smyth: I thank the Chairman for the reminder. In fact, what I was going to say was that it is a live case. It has not yet been decided and the implications of it are unknown as yet. Scenario planning is done, of course, but it is a live case and I cannot comment. I do not know how it is going to turn out, and that is the reality.

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

Ossian Smyth: One of the questions the Senator asked was whether the members of the Cabinet understand the seriousness of cybersecurity with reference to foreign direct investment. They do. This is an issue the American Chamber of Commerce and other lobby groups for multinationals bring up because they want to have a secure environment in which to locate their data and do business. That is completely...

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

Ossian Smyth: In fact, a task force with all those members was set up in 2011. We will review it in light of this capacity review and any specific recommendations they have about it. We actually have that in place. If there is some way in which it needs to be-----

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

Ossian Smyth: Their recommendation is to develop an action plan for this report and to sponsor its implementation. The task force is in place.

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

Ossian Smyth: Their recommendation is to develop the action plan, which I will remind the task force to carry out.

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

Ossian Smyth: The Chairman is correct. I will remind them of that.

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

Ossian Smyth: The gross annual budget in terms of current and capital expenditure is approximately €7 million for 2021.

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

Ossian Smyth: This angle has been raised by a number of Deputies and in the media, namely, the idea that the entire country's cybersecurity is being protected by 29 people and €7 million. That is absolutely not the case.

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

Ossian Smyth: I would love to be able to tell the Deputy that. What I need for that is the accounting to support that, in other words, that every Department, every State organisation and every public sector body would report back to me as to what its spend is and what its manpower is for cybersecurity. Without that information, I cannot give the Deputy a clear answer as to what the total expenditure is....

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

Ossian Smyth: The Deputy 's first question was on why Ireland was targeted. The truth is that Ireland was not especially targeted. Hospitals around the world have been randomly attacked. It is just as easy, if one is a criminal sitting at a computer, to attack a hospital in New Zealand as it is to attack one in the United States, where 16 hospitals were taken down, Ireland, France or wherever. The...

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

Ossian Smyth: We regularly meet with the tech giants. I had a meeting with Apple, which is based in the Deputy's constituency, not that long ago. Cybersecurity is discussed, but, in addition to that, we received support from third-party international cybersecurity consultants who provide us with a subscription service. We do not just rely on our own staff in Ireland. We also use third-party companies...

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

Ossian Smyth: They have said to me that they need Government involvement as well and that cannot defend themselves purely on a commercial basis. Through our co-operation-----

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

Ossian Smyth: None of the tech giants has contacted me, either directly or indirectly, to comment on the attack on the HSE attack or to express their concerns about it. We have a co-operative relationship with those companies. I have no sense they are suffering from dissatisfaction with the State in any way. They need us and we need them. There is a relationship there whereby we hire third-party and...