CSO figures show how many Irish firms suffered technology related security incidents last year

Almost a fifth of Irish businesses suffered technology related security incidents last year.

Central Statistics Office figures show most of the issues related to a denial of service attack, a ransomware issue or software failure.

Almost 5% of enterprises reported the destruction or corruption of data in 2018, with almost 3% noting confidential data was disclosed.

The figures also show that just over a third of Irish firms used software to either collect, store or make available information about its clients to other parts of the business, or to analyse customer information for marketing purposes.

Also, 71% of Irish companies used some type of social media last year, up from 67% in 2017.

Last year also saw nearly two thirds of large firms had online sales which accounted for 38% of their total sales, while 36% of small firms had online sales which accounted for 29% of all their sales.

Just over half of medium-sized companies had online sales which accounted for 29% of their total sales.

The data also showed that 79% of firms had a website, while 95% used a broadband connection to the internet.