Cybercriminals perfect 'social engineering': 'Each hack feeds the chances of the next one succeeding

To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Cover image: © France 24 07:26 Issued on: 21/08/2026 - 12:04Modified: 21/08/2026 - 12:09 Peter O'Brien is pleased to welcome Simon McGarr, Lawyer with McGarr Solicitors in Dublin, and Managing Director of Data Compliance Europe. Cybersecurity is no longer simply a question of whether governments possess adequate technical defences, explains McGarr. AI is altering those risks at extraordinary speed, placing capabilities once associated with states or sophisticated criminal organizations within reach of much smaller actors. If threats evolve month by month, governments must focus on prevention: identifying vulnerabilities, adapting defenses and developing long-term institutional capacity before emerging threats become crises. Keywords for this article