Why Yesterday’s Defences Can’t Stop Today’s Attacks

For decades, antivirus (AV) was synonymous with “endpoint security”. If every laptop and server had AV installed, auditors checked the box and boards felt reassured. It was low cost, easy to deploy, and offered a simple metric: number of devices covered.

But this confidence has become a dangerous illusion. Attackers do not measure your defences by how many licences you own. They measure them by how fast they can bypass them. Today, ransomware and malware bypass traditional AV in 80% of cases.

Antivirus is still necessary, but it is no longer sufficient. Treating it as the core of your defence leaves Irish organisations exposed to downtime, regulatory penalties, and reputational damage.

The End of Perimeter Thinking

The way businesses operate has changed. Workforces are mobile, applications sit in the cloud, and critical data flows across third parties. Yet many security strategies still cling to the idea of a defined perimeter. That model simply does not reflect how organisations work today.

The traditional perimeter, a digital wall between your organisation and the outside world, has collapsed. According to Microsoft research cited by Guardz, up to 90% of successful ransomware attacks now originate from unmanaged devices, exposing a vast attack surface that no firewall can protect.

For Irish SMEs and enterprises, this is a boardroom issue. Cyber Ireland reports that data breaches in Ireland rose 70% in Q2 2025, with 87,000 user accounts compromised in just three months (RTE). What looks like an IT boundary problem is, in reality, a strategic business risk.

The Antivirus Myth

Antivirus rose to prominence because it provided visible assurance. A licence could be counted, an audit box could be ticked, and leaders felt they had “done security”. The problem is that attackers have long since moved beyond the kinds of threats antivirus was built to stop.

Antivirus (AV) still has a role, but it is no longer the hero technology. Modern ransomware bypasses signature-based AV in more than 80% of cases. Believing that an AV licence count equals protection is like counting fire extinguishers while your building burns.

Attackers exploit human error, misconfigurations, and unpatched devices. Once inside, they do not stop at one machine. They harvest credentials, escalate privileges, and move laterally. What begins as a single infection becomes a full-scale outage measured in weeks, not hours.

Compliance Will Not Save You

Compliance is often misunderstood. Many organisations assume that passing an audit once a year proves they are secure. In truth, compliance frameworks are only the baseline. Regulators and customers now expect continuous evidence of resilience, not periodic paperwork.

• NIS2 came into force in Ireland in October 2024, requiring organisations to demonstrate real operational resilience, incident reporting, and supply chain security.
• DORA took effect from January 2025 for financial services, mandating ICT risk management, continuity, and third-party oversight.

In 2024, European regulators issued €1.5 billion in fines for cyber and data protection failings. Passing an audit once a year will not protect you if you cannot detect, respond, and recover in real time.

Cyber Assurance: The New Currency of Resilience

Security used to be judged by the presence of tools. Today, it is judged by the ability to prove outcomes. Boards want to see metrics that demonstrate resilience, regulators want to see evidence of control, and customers want to see continuity of service.

Resilience is no longer a “nice to have”. It is a board-level KPI. According to EY’s Global Board Risk Survey, boards are increasingly embedding resilience into their oversight frameworks, linking measurable resilience metrics directly to governance, performance, and long-term value.

The new currency is Cyber Assurance:

• Integration over isolation: EDR, MDR, XDR, AV, and SOC must operate as one fabric.
• Governance over tools: runbooks, accountability, and measured outcomes, not alerts in silos.
• Proof over promises: dashboards that track detection, response, recovery, and compliance.

This approach maps directly to the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, Recover) and aligns with ENISA’s operational resilience priorities for critical sectors.

Assurance vs. Tools vs. Insurance

When executives consider cyber risk, they often compare security tools and cyber insurance as if they were alternatives. Both play a role, but neither delivers what boards ultimately need: continuity and confidence. That requires assurance.

• Tools: provide alerts, but not outcomes. They do not close the loop or enforce accountability.
• Insurance: pays after the fact but does not prevent downtime, fines, or reputational damage.
• Assurance: delivers measurable resilience, proven recovery times, and compliance evidence. It reduces risk upfront, lowers incident frequency, and builds trust with customers, auditors, and regulators.

Every hour of downtime costs more than a year of assurance.

Tools vs. Insurance vs. Assurance

From Tools to Managed Outcomes

The challenge is not only technical. Many organisations already own capable tools but lack the operational model to integrate them, govern them, and translate them into measurable outcomes. That is where managed assurance comes in.

SureLogik, in partnership with Bitdefender, delivers Endpoint Management as a Service (EMaaS) as part of the tech stack. This is the model Irish organisations need to move from defence to assurance:

• Every endpoint secured and governed, wherever it lives.
• Advanced threat detection and isolation from Bitdefender’s global intelligence platform.
• Continuous governance, accountability, and reporting through SureLogik AssuredOps.
• Lower incident frequency, faster recovery, and evidence-ready compliance at a predictable per-endpoint cost.

Conclusion: Stop Defending Yesterday’s IT World

The security model of yesterday was about keeping attackers out. The security model of today is about proving resilience when they inevitably get in.

You cannot rely on antivirus alone. You cannot rely on a perimeter that no longer exists. And you cannot rely on a compliance certificate to convince regulators, customers, or boards.

What you can rely on is our Cyber Assurance: an integrated, measurable, and accountable approach that transforms endpoints from your weakest link into your strongest defence.

If your defences are still built for yesterday’s IT world, it is time to rethink your strategy. Contact SureLogik today for a Cyber Readiness Assessment and see how assured resilience can become your competitive advantage.

Then, take the next step and join us at our upcoming fireside chat, “From Compliance to Assurance: Building Real-World Cyber Resilience,” hosted in partnership with Bitdefender. Hear from industry leaders as they share how Irish organisations are redefining resilience through integrated endpoint assurance and measurable outcomes.

Reserve your seat here and be part of the conversation shaping Ireland’s next generation of cyber defence.