From: NACS The National Association of Convenience Stores
NACS part of coalition event featuring panelists from across the payments, cybersecurity and legislative arenas to emphasize need for decisive action.
WASHINGTON – Yesterday, the Merchant Financial Cyber Partnership, of which NACS is a partner, hosted its 2014 Merchant-Financial Services Cybersecurity Summit, in Washington, D.C. With more than 150 industry leaders, policymakers and members of the media in attendance, the summit viewed the topic of “Cybersecurity: Protecting the Payments system” from various perspectives over the course of three 45-minute panels.
Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, now CEO of Financial Services Roundtable, opened the event by sharing the statistic that between May 2013 and May 2014, the data of more than 110 million Americans (almost half of the U.S. adult population) was compromised through cybercrime and security breaches. This fact set the tone for the rest of the summit, during which participants from government, financial and merchant sectors all emphasized the severity of the cybercrime landscape and the need for urgent action.
Panelists in the first session, “Regulatory Landscape in Congress: Cyber Security Legislation and Information Sharing,” painted a grim picture of the state of cybercrime today — as U.S. companies and the government confront attacks from nations such as China and Russia, as well as international organized crime groups and traditional hackers — summed up by U.S. Representative Mike Rogers’ statement that “We are in a cyber war … we just don’t know it yet.” Rogers, along with fellow panelists U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss and White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Michael Daniel, all spoke about the importance of information sharing, with Chambliss describing it as “the guts” of any legislation that Congress will pass (in this or future legislative sessions), to address cybercrime responses. And, without a doubt, the panelists all emphasized that it is essential for Congress to pass cybercrime legislation sooner, rather than later — and well before the U.S. experiences a more severe breach than has already occurred.
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