Cyber Ireland, in partnership with the European Cyber Security Organisation (ECSO), hosted the ECSO Cyber Solutions Day (CSD) for the second year in Ireland as part of the Cyber Ireland National Conference (CINC25) on 8th October 2025 at the Lyrath Estate, Kilkenny.
Cyber Solutions Day is a European initiative that connects end-users (CISOs) with European cybersecurity solution providers to tackle cybersecurity challenges identified by industry. Each year, Cyber Ireland’s CISO Forum survey determines the key priorities and investment areas for CISOs in Ireland, ensuring the event is shaped by real industry needs.
For 2025, two themes emerged as top priorities:
- Security Reporting & Metrics and Third-Party Risk Management, reflecting the growing need to communicate security posture effectively to boards and to strengthen oversight of increasingly complex supply chains under DORA and NIS2.
- Cloud Security, driven by accelerating digital transformation, multi-cloud adoption, and the operational complexities of securing dynamic cloud environments.
The entire day’s programme — from the keynotes to the pitching sessions and the panel discussion — was built around these two critical themes, enabling attendees to explore strategic perspectives, discover innovative solutions, and exchange insights with peers. The event was moderated by Zarah Rios, Project Assistant at Cyber Ireland, and brought together Irish CISOs, European solution providers and experts for a day of focused collaboration.
Opening Keynote: Viewing Cyber Risk through the Intelligence Lens
The opening keynote was delivered by Dave Ahn, Chief Architect & VP at Centripetal on “An Intelligence Lens for Assessing Cyber Risk,” which explored how high-quality, actionable threat intelligence can complement existing risk management frameworks. He highlighted how nearly every attack vector is knowable when intelligence is applied effectively, and emphasised balancing breadth, depth and actionability to enable proactive, intelligence-driven risk mitigation at scale.
Pitching Session: European Cybersecurity Innovation on Stage
The CSD Judging Panel composed of:
- Jason Scanlon, Chief Information Security Officer & Head of IT GRC, Numata
- Jacqueline Kehoe, Programme Manager, Cyber Skills
- Michael McNamara, Senior Manager, Security & Governance, CISO, BT Ireland
Five European cybersecurity companies selected through a competitive process presented their innovative solutions to address the two core themes:
This session showcased cutting-edge European innovation aligned with the challenges faced by Irish CISOs in the areas of security reporting, third-party risk management, and cloud security. From these, two companies were chosen by the judging panel to compete in the ECSO CISO Choice Award in early 2026, an initiative that provides European cybersecurity companies with international visibility and recognition among potential buyers and business partners.
Technical Keynote: Instrumenting Agentic AI for Security
The second keynote was delivered by Dennis Chow, Director, Detection Engineering at UKG, on “Instrumenting Agentic AI for Security.”
Chow explored emerging security considerations for Agentic AI systems in the context of cloud security and advanced monitoring — from prompt injection guardrails to runtime behavioural baselines and outlier detection. He outlined practical instrumentation recommendations for organisations adopting agentic workloads, stressing the importance of unifying SRE and SOC telemetry and embedding monitoring into CI/CD pipelines before deployment.
CISO Insights Panel Discussion
A CISO panel discussion was moderated by John Brady (HSE), featuring Paul Delahunty (Stryve), Dennis Chow (UKG) and Julie Austin (Mason Hayes & Curran).
The panel delved into the day’s two core themes:
- How CISOs communicate security posture effectively to boards, leveraging automation and AI for real-time metrics.
- Legal and technical perspectives on Third-Party Risk Management in the context of DORA and NIS2.
- Emerging challenges in Cloud Security, including misconfigurations, shared responsibility models, and agentic AI governance in cloud environments.
Winners Announced: Yōjin and Cytidel
The event concluded with the announcement of the winners of the 2025 Cyber Solutions Day pitching competition.
Yōjin and Cytidel were selected by the jury for their innovative solutions and strong pitches. Both companies will go on to compete in the ECSO CISO Choice Award in early 2026, giving them a platform to showcase their solutions on a European stage and connect with potential investors and partners.
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