Half a Million Vulnerabilities Leave Irish Businesses Exposed to Cybercriminals

Centripetal, the global leader in cybersecurity threat intelligence, has exposed critical security gaps leaving hundreds of thousands of Irish networks vulnerable to cyberattack.
Using its proprietary threat intelligence analytics platform, Centripetal has mapped cyberattack entry points across Ireland down to individual IP addresses* and networks, revealing which regions, industries, and organisations face the greatest risk.
The findings are stark:
  • 349,000 Irish networks (3.6% of the total) remain unprotected from active cyber threats.
  • 44% have exposed vulnerabilities.
  • Half a million vulnerabilities exist on exposed assets across Ireland as of September 2025.
  • Dublin faces the highest risk, recording the greatest concentration of vulnerabilities across all industries.
Centripetal’s Attack Surface Map identifies specific attack vectors – the methods cybercriminals use to exploit vulnerabilities and gain unauthorised access to systems, networks, and sensitive data. This granular visibility enables organisations to understand their exact exposure and take immediate action.
The threat is active and escalating:
  • 63% of compromised networks are leveraged to conduct active reconnaissance – attackers are probing systems and planning their strikes through Irish infrastructure
  • 11% are acting as command-and-control centers to coordinate attacks – cybercriminals have already infiltrated these systems and are working to further seize control of other target networks
  • 35% increase in active attacks launched or coordinated through Irish networks since 2024 – the scale of attacks has expanded dramatically as cybercriminals automate campaigns and target vastly more organisations simultaneously by leveraging sophisticated tools and technologies including AI.
This means thousands of Irish organisations are likely under attack right now, many without knowing it.
David Silke, Managing Director, Centripetal Ireland says, “Across Ireland, we can see that there are Critical National Infrastructure organisations that are currently exposed to attack vectors. We can see that the largest attack vector in Ireland at present are the ISPs (Internet service providers – the telecoms and hosting providers). Our technology can drill down to a granular level to show which customers of a particular provider are affected by these vulnerabilities at a street level.
“We’re calling for organisations in Ireland to review their cybersecurity provision and asking them to put more emphasis on the use of threat intelligence to protect themselves. We know that only 20% of organisations currently do this.  At Centripetal, our technology effectively cloaks these vulnerabilities, hiding them from attackers so they can’t be targeted,” says Silke.
CleanINTERNET technology, including its new Fusion product, blocks 99.99% of threats by providing complete network visibility. Unlike traditional solutions that only monitor traffic entering and leaving the network (north-south), Fusion also monitors internal traffic flows (east-west), creating comprehensive protection from every angle.
This dual capability means organizations can now:
  • Stop external threats before they breach the network
  • Detect insider threats by identifying suspicious behavior from internal users and systems
  • Receive real-time alerts when unusual activity occurs, whether from outside attackers or internal sources
 

Intelligence cybersecurity leader Centripetal to create 50 Irish jobs, brings innovative technology to the cloud

Centripetal, the global leader in intelligence powered cybersecurity, today announced that it has opened its Galway based European Cyber Intelligence Centre of Excellence to address cybersecurity opportunities in the UK, Ireland and across Europe. Additionally, the company is enabling cloud-based deployments of its CleanINTERNET® solution for total enterprise protection. Centripetal is headquartered in the US and has plans to create 50 jobs in Galway. The project is supported by the Government of Ireland through IDA Ireland.

According to the International Trade Administration, The cybersecurity market in Ireland is thriving, valued at €280 million. However, with economic crime and fraud on the rise in recent years, cybercrime is extremely disruptive in how it impacts the business community. Grant Thornton Ireland reports that the cost of cybercrime in Ireland exceeded €9.6 billion in 2020. With the opening of Centripetal’s European Cyber Intelligence Centre of Excellence, the company will bring its innovative, patented technologies to the European market to protect organizations from every known cyberthreat.

Centripetal’s European Cyber Intelligence Centre of Excellence will serve as the central hub where new and existing customers can work with Centripetal to gain insight on the current European and global threat landscape and how they might be affected. Customers will have access to Centripetal’s global cyber intelligence operations analyst team, who continuously analyze emerging threats, highlighting critical risks and applying global threat intelligence.

“Today’s jobs announcement is yet another vote of confidence in Galway, in our available skilled workforce and in our city and county as a great place to work and live. Galway was home to a number of significant investment announcements last year including Fidelity Investment, Genesys, SAP and Diligent, so Centripetal are certainly in good company,” said Minister Hildegarde Naughton TD. “Congratulations again to the entire team at Centripetal and thank you for choosing not only Galway but the people of Galway.”

‘’The news that Centripetal is to open a European Cyber Intelligence Centre of Excellence in Galway is great news for the West Region and this investment will support the development of the wider technology ecosystem in Ireland for cyber,” said Anne-Marie Tierney Le-Roux, Head of Department Enterprise Technology at IDA Ireland. “The creation of 50 jobs is a vote of confidence in the talent and skill set that our regional locations in Ireland have to offer. I would like to wish Centripetal every success as they scale operations.’’

To give customers the ability to access intelligence powered cybersecurity everywhere, Centripetal’s CleanINTERNET® CLOUD is now available for deployment. The CleanINTERNET® service is a revolutionary approach to defending a company’s assets from cyber threats by leveraging dynamic threat intelligence on a mass scale. The solution can be deployed to protect assets running in cloud environments, providing unparalleled cyber defense and removing the need for more costly cybersecurity infrastructure. The addition of AWS cloud support extends CleanINTERNET® to protect all enterprise assets whether on premises, remote or in the cloud. Centripetal will additionally provide CleanINTERNET® on Azure and Google Cloud Platform in late 2023.

“Centripetal is the only cybersecurity vendor that delivers intelligence powered protection that neutralizes every known cyberattack at the network level while simultaneously driving down the cost of security operations,” said Jonathan Rogers, Chief Operating Officer for Centripetal. “Our innovative technology is an industry first and we’re thrilled to be partnering with the IDA to bring our solution to Ireland and the UK to not only provide unparalleled protection for our customers but also valuable employment opportunities for the country.”

Centripetal uses threat intelligence to shield organizations from 99% of known cyberthreats globally with CleanINTERNET®. This uniquely managed cyber defense service provides greater effectiveness, lower costs, and enhanced security expertise to defend networks from attacks.

Centripetal goes beyond traditional threat intelligence methods and pushes the industry forward by operationalizing the world’s largest collection of threat intelligence:

  • With over 250 Threat Intelligence providers, CleanINTERNET® applies over 100 billion indicators of compromise from real-time intelligence feeds, updated every 15 minutes, to protect its customers’ networks.
  • Centripetal defends customers networks by providing the fastest packet filtering technology on the planet, applying millions of threat intelligence based rules to incoming and outgoing datastreams with zero latency.
  • Centripetal’s elite team of highly trained intelligence operations analysts acts as an extension of its customer’s internal cybersecurity team, who monitor and analyze emerging threats. This mitigates the skills gap and reduces the burden on overworked IT resources.

For more information on Centripetal’s offering and its latest global European expansion, visit www.centripetal.ai/centripetal-ireland/