US lawmakers have sought the creation of a cybersecurity emergency response capability to help businesses deal with major cyber attacks.

“Who do you call if your CIO is overwhelmed, if you’re a local bank or utility?” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse asked and said “How can we preposition defences for our critical infrastructure, since these attacks come at the speed of light?”

Representative James Langevin pointed out that there are 1.8 billion attacks on US Government servers every month. During 2010, researchers tracked 662 data breaches at large companies or government agencies, with 16.2 million records exposed. Cyber-attacks cost the US economy an estimated $8 billion a year, he said.

In addition, nine million US residents are victims of identity theft each year, and cybercrime costs large businesses millions of dollars each year. Cybercriminals have stolen about $1 trillion worth of intellectual property from US businesses, Senator Sheldon mentioned.