Irish firms have been warned that they need to do more to protect themselves against cybercrimes after the number of attacks on Irish companies spiked during the last year.

Michael Gubbins, head of the Computer Crime Investigations Unit at the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation said that many small and medium-sized companies are unaware of the dangers of online crime.

Speaking ahead of an Infosecurity Ireland seminar which will take place on Wednesday, he called on business owners to educate themselves.

"Companies have a responsibility to mind customers’ information and to protect their business but while some are taking adequate precautions, there are others who aren’t doing enough," he told the Irish Times.

"If someone sets up a shop on Grafton Street they are going to put in CCTV, alarms and other security measures. The same concept has to be brought to bear with a company’s online presence, but this generally isn’t happening at present," he continued.

A recent survey from recruitment firm Experis showed that there is a shortage of IT security professionals in the country.

The most common forms of cyber attacks are invoice redirection fraud, distributed denial of service (DDoS) server attacks and CEO fraud when top executives are mimicked online and order employees to send money to overseas bank accounts.