President Obama's policy directive on cybersecurity is a welcome development, but policymakers must take additional steps to protect data, NAFCU President B. Dan Berger said Tuesday.
Obama on Tuesday released a Presidential Policy Directive that establishes principles that will guide the federal government's response to any cybersecurity incident. It establishes lead agencies for any major incident and a blueprint for a federal response.
"NAFCU and our members welcome President Obama's continued focus on addressing cybersecurity threats," Berger said. "However, data security is also of critical importance, and much more needs to be done on this front. Retail data breaches continue to be popular among cybercriminals seeking to capture consumers' sensitive personal and financial information."
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The directive makes it clear that the federal government will protect the details of the incident as much as possible and will defer to the entities involved to notify the other affected parties and the general public.
In responding to any cyber incident the federal government will focus on three areas — threat response, asset response and intelligence support and related activities. When a federal agency is involved, a fourth focus will be on agency operations, customers and workers.
NAFCU and other trade groups have called for data security legislation that would hold merchants to the same data security requirements that already exist for financial institutions. That legislation, which has been opposed by merchant groups, has been introduced in both houses of Congress, but the bills have not yet been reported out of committee.
The 2016 Global Consumer Fraud Report issued recently by the Naples, Fla.-based ACI Worldwide and Boston-based Aite Group revealed that card fraud has increased since 2014 for debit, credit and prepaid cards.
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