MOSCOW, October 6 (RIA Novosti) - New York's bank regulator is scheduled to discuss cybercrime precautions with the chief executives of several financial institutions following JPMorgan Chase's data breach, The Financial Times reported Monday.
"The cyber threat has to become urgent, one of the most important issues facing financial sector chief executives. It's got to be at the chief executive level. It is not an IT problem. It is a bank problem," Benjamin Lawsky, New York's Department of Financial Services (DFS) superintendent was quoted as saying by The Financial Times.
Lawsky noted that the talks were not meant to focus on the JPMorgan hack, rather to "re-emphasize and remind everyone that this isn't just an issue that should be on a list of problems and things to worry about and work on," the newspaper reported.
Lawsky stated cybersecurity would be a top priority for DFS, a regulator of bank and insurance companies in New York, in 2015. According to a DFS survey published in May, most financial institutions were targets of a cyberattack at least once over the past three years. Lawsky is urging companies obtain cyberinsurance to manage the fallout from cybercrime.
During a securities filing on October 2, JPMorgan, the biggest bank in the United States by assets, revealed that 76 million of its clients' names, addresses, telephone numbers and emails had been compromised by a data breach that took place this summer. Sources familiar with the situation claimed social security numbers and passwords were not accessed and traced the attack to Russia.
According to security experts, banks are constantly targeted by hackers due to the amount and importance of financial information they hold. Intelligence and law enforcement agencies have warned the financial and energy sectors of cyberattacks for years due to their information sensitivity. Some 3,000 US companies were hacked last year, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
