Marsh reacts to U.S. President Obama’s remarks on cyber security

Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc. issued this week a brief statement reacting to remarks by United States President Barack Obama on computer security vulnerabilities.

“Marsh & McLennan Companies recognizes that cyber security is a race without a finish line,” the New York based firm stated in a release after President Obama’s state of the union address.

During his address Tuesday, President Obama urged Congress “to finally pass the legislation we need to better meet the evolving threat of cyber attacks, combat identity theft, and protect our children’s information.”

New York City-based Marsh & McLennan owns commercial brokerage and risk management firm Marsh Inc. Other subsidiaries include risk and reinsurance intermediary Guy Carpenter & Company LLC. Marsh & McLennan suggested company officials “look forward to continuing to work with the Administration and Congress on public-private solutions that help to safeguard the nation’s cyber infrastructure.”

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act – tabled Jan. 8 in the U.S. House of Representatives – proposes to create “a voluntary system for the government and private sector to share anonymous cyber threat information,” stated Dutch Ruppersberger, the Democrat congressman representing the Second District of Maryland in the House of Representatives, in a Jan. 13 press release.

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That information would be “generally computer codes …. so that we can better protect networks from attacks like we have seen hit Target, Home Depot and Sony,” Ruppersberger stated at the time.

Home Depot announced in September that 56 million payment cards used at its American and Canadian retail stores, between April and September, had been compromised.

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act proposes to provide “civil and criminal liability protections to cybersecurity providers, contracting entities, and self-protected entities acting in good faith to obtain or share threat information or to safeguard systems from threats.”

“No foreign nation, no hacker, should be able to shut down our networks, steal our trade secrets, or invade the privacy of American families, especially our kids,” President Obama said Tuesday. “So we’re making sure our government integrates intelligence to combat cyber threats, just as we have done to combat terrorism.”

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act has been referred to the House Intelligence (Permanent Select), Judiciary, Armed Services and Homeland Security commmittees.

“I applaud President Obama for proposing cybersecurity legislation that prioritizes information-sharing,” Ruppersberger stated in his release. “As I have been saying for years, strengthening communication between the private and public sectors is the single most important thing we can do to combat increasingly-aggressive cyber attacks on American corporations and consumers.”