Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Cybercriminals don’t need to be sophisticated. They just need the opportunity—and in Ireland, there’s still too much low-hanging fruit. Many of the vulnerabilities being exploited across Irish networks today aren’t new. They’re years old. Attackers are taking advantage of outdated systems that haven’t been patched, relying on free, off-the-shelf tools to scan for weaknesses—and finding them far too easily. This isn’t a theoretical risk.

In June 2025, FBI New York and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced charges against “IntelBroker,” the online persona of 25-year-old British national Kai Logan West. IntelBroker operated one of the most sophisticated data brokerage operations documented in the recent history of cybercrime.

Getting through secure email gateways (SEGs) is simply the cost of doing business for a cybercriminal. Literally, detection at the perimeter by a SEG is the same as falling at the first hurdle. SEGs have been adopted broadly, especially in larger organizations (although this picture has started to change in recent years - more on that below). Even where organizations don’t use a SEG, many native controls in email platforms (like Microsoft Exchange) operate using the same principles.

Digital connectivity is reshaping European manufacturing, driving both efficiency and innovation. However, this shift has also created a complex and vulnerable cyber threat landscape, making manufacturing the most targeted industry for cyberattacks for the past four years. Connected systems and legacy infrastructure are colliding, expanding the attack surface and exposing manufacturers to increased risks.

Welcome to the 22nd edition of the Cloudflare DDoS Threat Report. Published quarterly, this report offers a comprehensive analysis of the evolving threat landscape of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks based on data from the Cloudflare network. In this edition, we focus on the second quarter of 2025. June was the busiest month for DDoS attacks in 2025 Q2, accounting for nearly 38% of all observed activity.

Cybersecurity professionals encounter two primary categories of denial-of-service threats: traditional denial of service (DoS) and distributed denial of service (DDoS) variants. DoS attacks stem from a single system, while DDoS campaigns leverage multiple machines to overwhelm the target. The fundamental difference? Scale and coordination complexity. Both DoS and DDoS attacks are a type of malicious attempt to disrupt services.

According to Zoho Workplace, organizations struggle to protect themselves as spam makes up 45% of all emails. These sophisticated threats deliberately exploit human psychology. Attackers convince people to bypass security measures, which leads to unauthorized access to the system. Standard defense mechanisms alone cannot curb these evolving threats. This blog explores how organizations can prevent social engineering using contextual threat intelligence and real-time behavioral analysis.