Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping the cybersecurity landscape across Ireland. While it's unlocking new efficiencies and accelerating innovation, it's also giving cybercriminals new evasive tools to launch faster and more sophisticated attacks.

Across Ireland, organisations are navigating a new era of cyber risk defined by speed, sophistication, and AI. As Dell Technologies continues to work closely with Irish businesses to modernise their digital infrastructure, it's clear that cybersecurity must evolve in tandem, as a strategic enabler of trust and resilience.

Threat actors are using AI to enhance ransomware, zero-day vulnerabilities, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) all making advanced spear-phishing much harder to identify, outpacing conventional security measures.

According to the latest Dell Technologies Innovation Catalyst Study, 84% of Irish organisations view security as a key part of their business strategy, yet many continue to struggle with balancing innovation and security. Almost all respondents (96%) admitted that integrating security into wider business strategies is proving difficult. These figures highlight that organisations must rethink their cybersecurity strategies to adopt proactive, intelligent, and resilient approaches that keep pace with the evolving threat environment.

Here are five ways to stay resilient against cyber threats:

1. Adopt zero trust for AI Security

As threat actors use AI to scout, steal credentials and adapt attack techniques, traditional perimeter-based defences fall short.

That's why more Irish organisations are adopting a Zero Trust model built on the principle of "never trust, always verify" ensuring that every user, device, and application is continuously authenticated, regardless of location.

The benefits are clear; the latest Innovation Catalyst Study revealed a 100% increase in confidence levels among Irish organisations that have adopted zero trust principles, underscoring its growing value as a security framework. By implementing zero trust principles, organisations can help reduce risk by continuously verifying every access request and implementing strict authentication processes. Using role-based access controls (RBAC) and network segmentation, organisations can minimise the risk of an attack and reduce the impact radius if an attack occurs.

Zero trust is more than a security philosophy. It's a unified and adaptive strategy for identity and access management. Through a zero trust approach, organisations not only reduce their attack surface, but also strengthen their ability to detect, respond to and contain threats.

2. Reduce the attack surface

In an environment where AI-powered threat actors are constantly probing for weaknesses, reducing the attack surface is a critical line of defence. Every exposed endpoint, unsecured API, or overlooked supply chain vulnerability represents an opportunity for adversaries to infiltrate systems, deploy malware and exfiltrate sensitive data.

To mitigate these risks, Irish organisations should begin with assessing and understanding their attack surface and related vulnerabilities. From there, they should have a layered defence strategy focused on securing entry points and minimising exposure. This includes strengthening authentication, encrypting data, regularly testing for vulnerabilities and actively monitoring endpoints. Keeping systems patched and devices hardened further limits risks.

By reducing the attack surface, organisations make themselves a harder target, thereby decreasing the likelihood of an attack.

3. Continuously detect and respond to threats

AI-powered attacks are capable of mimicking legitimate behaviour and evading traditional security tools, and organisations need to combine advanced threat detection with rapid response capabilities.

Leveraging AI and machine learning, organisations can monitor operational data, detect anomalies, and trigger automated responses in real time.

This AI-powered threat...