Only 2% of organizations have implemented the 12 recommended resilience actions, such as multi-factor authentication, across their business, while 42% or fewer of executives believe their organization has fully implemented the actions of critical resilience.

The findings come from PwC’s Digital Trust Insights 2025 survey, which reveals that despite the importance of cyber resilience, urgent improvements are needed to properly protect organizations in the future.

The global survey, now in its 27th year, is the longest-running and largest survey of cybersecurity trends. It received input from more than 4,000 senior business, technology and security executives from 77 countries, including Ireland.

The survey focused on major areas such as increasing cybersecurity regulations, third-party cyber risks, cyber resilience, generative AI (GenAI), and cybersecurity trends for 2025.

Organizations operate in an ever-changing cybersecurity landscape, with changing threats, regulations and best practices. With the average cost of data breaches across all respondents being $3.3 million (€3.041 million), organizations are more aware of the importance of good cybersecurity practices.

In the EU, new emerging regulations such as the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and Network and Information Security Directive 2 (NIS2) will soon come into force, while third-party breaches constitute an ever-increasing concern.

The survey found that compliance costs are increasing due to new regulations, with DORA and NIS2 leading to significant changes in compliance requirements.

GenAI brought both risks and rewards

The survey found that 26 percent of global respondents are prioritizing their 2025 cybersecurity budget to comply with these new regulations, while Irish businesses see strong cybersecurity as crucial, 57 percent saying customer trust and 50 percent say brand integrity is the priority. main drivers of this situation.

When it comes to third-party cyber risks, breaches are the biggest threat, with 48% of Irish respondents saying so. Of those surveyed, 28% of global respondents view third-party breaches as the cyber threat they are least prepared to face in the next twelve months.

Globally, the top threats that organizations are concerned about include cloud threats (42%), hacks and leaks (38%), third-party breaches (35%), and product attacks connected (33%). ).

The survey also found that organizations are increasingly relying on third-party providers, demonstrating the importance of strong third-party risk management programs.

The theme of emerging technologies was also discussed, with GenAI playing a larger role in cybersecurity defense strategies. It is now increasingly integrated into areas such as threat detection, threat intelligence, and malware detection.

GenAI has brought both risks and rewards, with 67% of global security leaders saying it has increased their attack surface. Additionally, 39% of global respondents cite lack of internal stakeholder trust in GenAI as a significant challenge.

The outlook is more positive regarding the budget and cybersecurity priorities. The survey reveals that 66 percent of Irish organizations plan to increase their cybersecurity budget in 2025, while cybersecurity is the top risk that Irish (74 percent) and global (57 percent) organizations need to address as a priority .

Risks related to digital and technology (48 percent) and inflation (42 percent) are also important concerns for senior executives.

The Digital Trust Insights survey has become a vital resource for business decision-makers, providing in-depth insights into the evolving technology and cybersecurity landscape.

More than a quarter of the executives surveyed work for large companies with revenues of $5 billion (€4.61 billion) or more. Respondents come from a wide range of sectors, including manufacturing and services, technology, media and telecommunications, financial services, retail and consumer markets, and energy, utilities and resources.

PwC is a trusted global leader in forensics, e-discovery and cyber incident response. It offers a full range of cybersecurity, data protection and privacy services to help organizations assess, build and manage their defenses.

She is committed to helping organizations navigate the complexities of the digital world.

To read the full Digital Trust Insights survey report, visit www.pwc.ie