{"id":392574,"date":"2026-04-11T02:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T02:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/392574\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T02:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T02:13:09","slug":"computer-engineer-claims-he-was-penalised-for-flagging-companys-israel-links-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/392574\/","title":{"rendered":"Computer engineer claims he was penalised for flagging company\u2019s Israel links \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A tribunal has heard a leading Irish cybersecurity<\/a> firm gave a computer engineer a formal reprimand for making \u201cdiscriminatory comments\u201d when he voiced concerns about a tech firm with Israeli<\/a> links having high-level access to its servers.<\/p>\n

Computer engineer Cian \u00d3 Laoi told his chief executive he was concerned about \u201cnonchalantly giving business to an Israeli company\u201d while \u201cwatching on TV the genocide of the Palestinians<\/a>\u201d, the tribunal heard.<\/p>\n

He told his bosses he had concerns for \u201cclients of national security importance\u201d served by his employer in the context of what he said were \u201cstrongly documented links\u201d between the Israeli tech sector and its intelligence services.<\/p>\n

\u00d3 Laoi is pursuing claims of whistleblower penalisation and constructive dismissal against his former employer, BCC Risk Advisory Ltd, trading as Edgescan.<\/p>\n

The company is actively contesting \u00d3 Laoi\u2019s complaints, which are before the Workplace Relations Commission<\/a> (WRC). <\/p>\n

The complainant, who spent four years working in Edgescan\u2019s DevOps team, told a hearing on Friday the company had access to the computer networks of its clients financial institutions, private corporations, media companies and Irish and British government departments.<\/p>\n

Its work involved installing a \u201cjump-box\u201d of software on its clients\u2019 systems for threat monitoring, penetration testing and security analysis, he said.<\/p>\n

\u00d3 Laoi said he became concerned about the level of access that had been granted to a third-party vendor called DoIT, a multinational tech firm providing a tech platform used for business analysis and management.<\/p>\n

He said he reported his concerns in a protected disclosure to Edgescan chief executive Eoin Keary on July 2nd, 2024, in an email after 11pm that evening.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are an Israeli company with an Israeli CEO, and they have full admin access to all our AWS [Amazon Web Services<\/a>] accounts, including all machines, all databases, all client data,\u201d \u00d3 Laoi wrote. \u201cThis is bananas,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

He wrote that the firm\u2019s databases, scanning tools, encryption keys and the \u201cjump boxes\u201d it deployed to client systems were at risk, the tribunal heard.<\/p>\n

\u00d3 Laoi told the chief executive that while DoIT held some accreditation as a reseller of the AWS internet hosting service which Edgescan used for its security infrastructure, he was concerned that \u201csophisticated social engineering\u201d had led to too much access being granted.<\/p>\n

\u00d3 Laoi also wrote in the internal correspondence that he was concerned about \u201cnonchalantly giving business to an Israeli company\u201d while \u201cwatching on TV the genocide of the Palestinians\u201d, the tribunal heard.<\/p>\n

The chief executive\u2019s reply on the night was: \u201cShut them off completely\u201c, the tribunal was told. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy concern was it could be used to exfiltrate data from the account. It could be used to place back doors into the account, or into clients\u2019 private networks,\u201d \u00d3 Laoi said in his evidence.<\/p>\n

The access was granted more than a year earlier in May 2023, \u00d3 Laoi said. The matter was resolved over the course of July 2024, with DoIT and Edgescan agreeing to \u201crestructure everything\u201d.<\/p>\n

At the end of that month, \u00d3 Laoi said he was called to a meeting with Edgescan\u2019s chief operating officer, Rahim Jina. The executive said \u201cthe rhetoric I used in some of my communications in relation to Israel was unacceptable\u201d, \u00d3 Laoi said.<\/p>\n

Jina said he knew there was \u201cawful stuff going on in the world\u201d and that people have \u201cdifferent views\u201d about it but that the company had \u201cmany close links with Israel\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said we had Jewish employees. I\u2019m not clear why this was included in the conversation, \u00d3 Laoi said. \u201cWhen I asked what specific communications, he was unable to clarify,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

He emailed the chief executive, Keary, about his meeting with Jina and said he could only presume he was referring to a passage from his email to the chief executive on July 2nd.<\/p>\n

He argued he had taken a \u201cvalid and diligent cybersecurity posture\u201d, arguing that Israel was known for \u201cintense\u201d activity in the cybersecurity area and \u201chigh-profile illegal activities\u201d.<\/p>\n

Keary wrote back and said: \u201cOkay, no fuss, it\u2019s hard to avoid Israeli companies in cybersecurity. I guess he doesn\u2019t want Edgescan to [be seen] as political,\u201d the tribunal heard.<\/p>\n

The chief executive added: \u201cIt\u2019s one way to be blackballed in the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00d3 Laoi said he felt \u201cvery hard done by\u201d and that his professionalism had been \u201cunfairly impugned\u201d.<\/p>\n

On July 31st, 2024, \u00d3 Laoi wrote to his employer seeking clarity on whether the company had taken a view of his remarks or whether Jina had been speaking personally.<\/p>\n

After taking leave, he was called to a meeting on September 19th, 2024, and was served with a disciplinary warning for \u201cmisconduct\u201d, the tribunal heard.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the call, I was formally disciplined for discriminatory comments based on race, colour, nationality or ethnic or national origin,\u201d in relation to Israel he said.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the meeting, \u00d3 Laoi said he had been concerned about being \u201cjumped\u201d with disciplinary action. The tribunal heard he covertly taped the meeting.<\/p>\n

\u00d3 Laoi maintained at the meeting that what he wrote about Israel was part of a protected disclosure, according to a transcript quoted to the hearing by his barrister, Cillian McGovern.<\/p>\n

His bosses did not agree he was shielded by whistleblower law, the tribunal heard.<\/p>\n

\u00d3 Laoi said the disciplinary process was \u201cunlawful\u201d as he was not given the chance to bring representation or set out a defence.<\/p>\n

On September 21st he wrote again to his employer saying he had taken legal advice and that he believed its actions were \u201cunjust and unfairly limited my rights of freedom of expression and conscience\u201d.<\/p>\n

He set out in the correspondence that the remarks for which he was disciplined were \u201cobjectively justifiable\u201d and not discriminatory.<\/p>\n

This was because Edgescan had \u201cclients of national security importance\u201d and there were \u201cstrongly documented links between the Israeli tech sector and Unit 8200,\u201d he wrote in the letter \u2013 a reference to Israeli military intelligence.<\/p>\n

When he tried to log in to work on Monday September 23rd he found his access to a number key systems \u2013 including its AWS account and its code database on GitHub \u2013 had all been cut off since the previous Friday, he said.<\/p>\n

He quit his employment on October 8th that year, telling the tribunal that he had lost trust with the firm.<\/p>\n

The company wrote to the claimant on October 30th that year withdrawing the disciplinary sanction on the basis it had not adhered to its own process \u2013 leaving his client with a \u201cclean disciplinary record\u201d, McGovern said.<\/p>\n

The case before adjudication officer Penelope McGrath stands adjourned until Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tribunal has heard a leading Irish cybersecurity firm gave a computer engineer a formal reprimand for making…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[10934,3312,42,3410,43,4268,40,38,41,39,6465],"class_list":{"0":"post-392574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-amazon-web-services","9":"tag-cybersecurity","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-palestine","14":"tag-top-news","15":"tag-top-stories","16":"tag-topnews","17":"tag-topstories","18":"tag-workplace-relations-commission"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}