Treasury official: Cyber crime is a major threat

Cyber crime is a serious threat to companies around the world, and they must do more to help the government fight it, a top Treasury Department official said Wednesday.

U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Sarah Bloom Raskin urged companies to adopt comprehensive cyber defenses in a way that thoroughly integrates them with business practices.

{mosads}Speaking to an international finance conference in London, Raskin compared the challenge of fighting cyber crime to traveling to Mars and back in one day.

“Each of us must recognize this risk is perhaps the most pressing operational risk of our time,” she told an audience at the CityWeek conference, according to Reuters.

“We now need to develop consensus around ways to respond to this threat.”

Raskin said companies could take preliminary steps to fight cyberattacks, including sharing threat information with other firms, vetting third-party vendors for risk and preparing for major breaches.

Banks and other financial institutions have long confronted threats online, but the 2014 breach of JPMorgan  Chase serves a cautionary tale to the industry.

In that case, hackers gained access to information for more than 83 million accounts after discovering a weakness in a neglected server.