{"id":209455,"date":"2026-05-06T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/06\/cybersecurity-boss-shores-up-defences-for-tsunami-of-ai-attacks\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T05:00:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:00:36","slug":"cybersecurity-boss-shores-up-defences-for-tsunami-of-ai-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testing.news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/06\/cybersecurity-boss-shores-up-defences-for-tsunami-of-ai-attacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Cybersecurity boss shores up defences for \u2018tsunami\u2019 of AI attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cybersecurity boss shores up defences for \u2018tsunami\u2019 of AI attacks<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.thetimes.com\/world\/ireland-world\/article\/cybersecurity-boss-shores-up-defences-for-tsunami-of-ai-attacks-g9l5z0scg<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-06 02:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.thetimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Author: <\/a><\/p>\n

Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. <\/p>\n

As a James Bond fan, Ian Brown is happy to show off the thumbprint technology that provides access to a security operations centre at Integrity360\u2019s headquarters in Sandyford, south Dublin.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is not exactly an explosive Parker pen but it is a cool piece of tech, which shows that security starts at home for the cybersecurity firm.<\/p>\n

Inside the centre, the walls are covered in screens as Integrity360 employees search for the millions of threats that could compromise their clients.\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re fighting the bad guys,\u201d Brown says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Set up by the entrepreneur Eoin Goulding in 2005, Integrity360 has become one of the top three pure-play cybersecurity specialists in Europe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Goulding sold a majority stake in the business in 2021 to Brown, his British private equity partner August Equity and the international investment bank Rothschild & Co, the growth of the business was put on turbocharge.<\/p>\n

Goulding stepped down from leading the company to take up the position of non-executive director and pursue other interests. Brown became executive chairman and, under his watch, the company has gone from focusing purely on the Republic of Ireland to entering 15 other regions over the past five years, adopting a buy-and-build strategy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve moved very quickly,\u201d Brown says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since 2021, Integrity360 has bought ten companies of various sizes and ages \u2014 it does not disclose how much it pays, but three acquisitions in 2024 increased its revenues by \u20ac22 million, from \u20ac125 million to \u20ac157 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2024, it made its first acquisition outside Europe when it bought Grove Group, a South African company with 50 employees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since 2021, Integrity360 has bought ten companies of various sizes and agesBRYAN MEADE FOR THE TIMES<\/p>\n

\u201cIn January, we planted our first flag on the American continent,\u201d says Brown, referring to the acquisition of Advantus360, a cybersecurity services company operating out of Calgary in Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Revenues have grown exponentially \u2014 from \u20ac37 million in 2021 to an expected \u20ac220 million this year \u2014 pretty much achieving the target it set for itself in 2021.<\/p>\n

Now Brown has a new goal in mind. He would love the company to reach \u20ac1 billion in revenues. \u201cIt\u2019s a realistic goal,\u201d he says.\u201cOver the past five years our revenues have gone up by over six times. We certainly have the opportunity to do that again. The Americas is a big opportunity for us.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cYou could certainly see how in the next five years we could get up to \u20ac750 million. If we start buying bigger companies, which is something that we\u2019re having discussions about around the boardroom table, then we can get there faster,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

Integrity360 provides what Brown calls \u201cend-to-end cyber services\u201d. It does everything from managing a company\u2019s firewall and data security to handling emergency incident responses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brown says the business is proactive in how it defends clients. \u201cWe don\u2019t wait for events to happen; we are constantly looking [for threats],\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The company also provides testing services for clients where it pretends to be \u201cthe bad guys\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the projects that a lot of the team enjoy. We will do a full-on assault. We won\u2019t tell our client when we are coming or how we\u2019re coming [but will have the mandate to do it], and we\u2019ll see how far we can get,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The company also takes its services offline to test the physical security of its customers\u2019 offices \u201cbecause that, in some respects, is equally as important as the digital security\u201d, Brown says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Undercover Integrity360 employees will see whether they can breach security by walking into office buildings and may even go as far as putting ransomware on a computer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing with the morning rush how people tailgate and get into offices,\u201d Brown says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The company has dropped a bunch of USBs in a carpark to see whether an employee will pick them up and put them into a computer.\u00a0\u201cYou\u2019d be surprised at how many people do pick them up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Integrity360 has more than 3,500 clients, the majority of which are \u201cmid-market and enterprise businesses, household names that you would be familiar with\u201d, according to Brown. <\/p>\n

He does not name names \u2014 cybersecurity is a notoriously secretive business. However, AIB has named the company as a supplier. Integrity360 has also won a number of public sector tenders, including for the Department of Foreign Affairs, Tallaght University Hospital and EirGrid.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2024, it won a \u20ac6 million, three-year contract to provide security services for the Central Bank of Ireland.<\/p>\n

Brown says Integrity360 has seen an uptick in interest from small firms for cybersecurity services, as increasing numbers are feeling the pain of cyberattacks. <\/p>\n

A survey carried out last year by the insurance broker Gallagher found that almost 90 per cent of Irish companies had experienced financial loss and commercial disruption because of a cyberattack between 2020 and 2025. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem for [small companies] is if they get attacked, compromised and their systems are shut down, very often they don\u2019t have the cash reserves and the balance sheet to survive it,\u201d Brown says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Artificial intelligence is throwing up further challenges and opportunities for Integrity360. Brown describes it as a \u201ctsunami that\u2019s coming\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are \u201cnew vulnerabilities for bad guys to exploit\u201d and it \u201cinevitably can present new types of attack vectors\u201d but the company is \u201cfighting AI attacks with AI\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n

In some tech companies, AI is attacking the employee headcount, but Brown says Integrity360 will continue to recruit.\u00a0It has 800 staff, 100 of whom are based in Dublin, and the majority are \u201ctechnical folk \u2014 experts, analysts and architects\u201d. He adds: \u201cThere\u2019s still a shortage of talent in this sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown himself has a background in electronic engineering. From southern England, he spent much of his youth riding horses and harboured dreams of becoming a jockey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy family wasn\u2019t wealthy enough to own a farm but I was always working on a farm,\u201d\u00a0he says. \u201cIn my final year of school, I worked as a trainee jockey over the sticks [hurdles] because I was too heavy to do flat.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Brown soon came to the realisation that \u201cyou have to be in the top 1 per cent to earn any money as a jockey\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was quite ambitious and after a weekend helping at his father\u2019s employer, Thorn EMI, a big British electrical engineering company, to move offices, he realised he had a better chance of earning good money in electronic engineering.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw all this electronic instrumentation \u2014 there were oscilloscopes and spectrum analysers and all these things \u2014 and I got quite fascinated,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the early 1980s, Brown was sponsored by Hewlett-Packard to study for a diploma in electronic engineering. He spent a lot of time in California and even met its co-founder, Dave Packard.<\/p>\n

After Hewlett-Packard, he moved to 3Com, another American technology business. Despite \u201cjumping up the corporate ladder\u201d at 3Com, Brown says he always had a passion to do something by himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1995, he convinced Lloyds Bank to lend him $400,000 and 3i, a private equity group, to stump up \u00a31.8 million to allow him to buy two small businesses and merge them together to create Fastnet, a communications and network services company.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember\u00a0being in the most dreadful office in Shoreditch [in east London], which used to flood,\u201d Brown says \u2014 but Fastnet\u2019s success was pretty rapid.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Within five years it was sold to Redstone, a London Stock Exchange-listed company. The private equity group 3i received a tenfold return on its \u00a31.8 million investment and the sale made Brown a rich man.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A year later Redstone was struggling and its main institutional shareholders approached Brown about becoming chief executive. Brown called in an insolvency practitioner initially but, instead of winding up the firm, he drew up a rescue plan, raised \u00a324 million and took an axe to costs, laying off staff. \u201cI had to be a little bit brutal,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Over the next four years he reversed Redstone\u2019s financial performance, got it back into the black and the business was growing when he departed in 2005.\u00a0Redstone went through a demerger in 2013.<\/p>\n

Two years later he co-founded Axell Wireless after merging three companies. It supplied an antenna system that enabled mobile phone coverage underground. It supplied systems for some of the world\u2019s most well-known buildings, including the Pentagon in the US, Burj Khalifa in Dubai and the Bundestag in Germany.\u00a0In 2013, Brown and his backers sold the company for \u00a385 million.<\/p>\n

The PentagonGETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

He first joined forces with August Equity in 2015, when both parties invested in SecureData Europe, a cybersecurity firm based in England. Brown took up a leadership role in the business in 2016, implementing a restructuring plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2019, the French communications firm Orange bought the company in a deal said to be valued at \u00a3120 million. It was another good payday for Brown and August, with a 7.5 times return on their investment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI will always write a cheque when investing in the company,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t put as much money in as the private equity investor does but I still put quite a lot of money in \u2014 and they like that because it means I\u2019ve got skin in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Integrity360, he and August seem on track to replicate previous successes.\u00a0Brown says he has developed a good working relationship with the London-based private equity firm \u2014 which has also invested in OneTouch, the Galway company.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know each other very well,\u201d he says. \u201cWe don\u2019t always agree,\u00a0we\u2019ll bicker sometimes, but we always do it in a closed room and have never fallen out.\u201d <\/p>\n

Brown says an exit from Integrity360 is not imminent. \u201cAt some point there will be a change in ownership but that doesn\u2019t have to be as dramatic as it sounds,\u201d he says. \u201cIt might be that August sells down part of their stake or brings in an additional investor. I get a lot of calls from people, other funds, saying, \u2018Can we invest in Integrity360?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown says he would be disappointed if the company did not buy another two businesses this year. \u201cI\u2019ve learnt through doing this game for 30-odd years that nothing\u2019s over until it\u2019s over, until a bit of paper is signed.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The company will focus on growing its business in America and the Middle East once the war \u201csettles down a bit\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brown, now 62, has no intention of doing a Daniel Craig and stepping away from the leading man role. \u201cWe set out to build Integrity360 as a global business. We\u2019re only covering 25 per cent of the world, so there\u2019s a long way to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

The life of Ian Brown<\/p>\n

Age: 62Lives: Ballsbridge, DublinFamily: partner Katrina, and four adult childrenEducation: higher national diploma in electronic engineering from\u00a0Favourite film: Spectre, the 2015 James Bond filmFavourite book: Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson. \u201cI am currently reading The Art of Power by Nancy Pelosi.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ian Brown\u2019s favourite film is Spectre, starring Daniel Craig as 007Alamy<\/p>\n

Working day: For me exercise is a significant thing so I get up at about 6am every day and go to the gym. I travel about 50 per cent of the time. We\u2019re a company where I think visible leadership is important, so I spend a lot of time going to the offices, seeing the teams, having sessions with the managers, meeting some of the customers or some of the suppliers. On the days I am in the office in Dublin, I\u2019ll spend a lot of time on video calls and tend to stay until 8pm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Downtime: I was a competitive triathlete but don\u2019t do that any more. I love being on a boat. I charter yachts with friends and travel around Corsica or the Italian coast. I enjoy socialising.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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