SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine - Providing information to Maine businesses to help them improve their cybersecurity - that was the aim of a briefing in South Portland hosted Tuesday by Maine U.S. Sen. Angus King, the Maine State Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
King said in the absence of federal legislation, there are steps that businesses can take on their own to better protect themselves against cyber-attacks. He said Congress is struggling to pass cybersecurity legislation for a couple of reasons, including concerns about privacy rights and jurisdiction disputes among various congressional committees.
"Believe it or not, that's part of what's going on here and it just drives me crazy," King said, "because if something really bad happens I don't want to go home to Maine and say, 'Well, we tried to work on this but, you know, we had four committees and we just couldn't really work it out."
King says that the annual global cost of cyber-crime exceeds $445 billion, potentially costing the U.S. more than 200,000 jobs.
