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Senator Angus King hosted an event on cyber security on Tuesday, August 18, and approximately one-third of the registered attendees at the sold-out seminar were credit union representatives. The event, held at Texas Instruments in South Portland, featured Senator King, Dana Connors, President of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, Raul Morales, Assistant Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and Michael LeKing, Cyber Security Advisor for the Northeast at DHS. Senator King welcomed attendees to what he referred to as the "let's not wait for Congress to act" tour. Over the past year, Senator King has spoken frequently about the financial impact of data breaches, often referencing figures provided by the Maine Credit Union League, and the need for this issue to be addressed.
In his opening remarks, Senator King said that the recent OPM (United States Office of Personnel Management) breach was substantial. "I have general concerns about other high-value targets like nuclear power, gas reserves, electric facilities, and our nation's financial systems. I urge the private sector to share more data amongst themselves and other agencies like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Congress has not yet acted, not because of partisan fighting but because of disputes in committee jurisdiction: Is Cyber owned by Homeland, Finance, Intelligence or Commerce. In addition, there are many concerns about privacy rights that slow this discussion."
Assistant Secretary Morales explained, "Cyber Security is a hot topic at DHS, and has grown from 40 employees in 2009 to 400 employees today. Even with all the attention most breaches reported to my office occurred 200 days in the past. 55,000 incidents reported so far from public agencies alone (none of these include private sector reports). DHS has found that 25% of its own employees can be tricked into clicking on specific emails and that education has been found to be the most effective tool. We estimate that about 75% of breaches are due to poor security hygiene."
As one of the individuals who works directly in the trenches, LeKing offered his perspective. "There are a great many resources and ideas that we would like to see utilized to help all business work together. Unfortunately, many businesses do not take advantage of the many free services we offer." He also spent a great deal of time on Incident Management and it's criticality to identify and contain challenges (i.e. malware being clicked in an email). "Training is the best approach. It is a business function, not a technical item. He stated that when CEOs, Tech, and Business Leaders are all at the table - security becomes part of the company's DNA," LeKing added.
Your League's President John Murphy thanked Senator King for "organizing this event, and for engaging and including Maine credit unions in this discussion, as this is an issue that is not going away anytime soon and is of great concern to Maine's credit unions."
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