Cybercrime is ‘bigger than global drug trade’

Cybercrime is now more lucrative than the drugs trade and Irish companies must treat it as an ongoing concern, an IT security expert has warned.

Boss of Dublin-based IT security firm Ward Solutions, Pat Larkin said failure to take cybersecurity breaches seriously was costing some firms hundreds of thousands of euro in the short term following a breach.

He said it was also having an impact in the medium to long term with share prices dropping and not recovering because of investor concerns over security.