MASSENA -- SeaComm's CEO, members of their Board of Directors and senior management recently traveled to Washington, D.C. with 5,000 other credit union representatives for what they call “Hike the Hill,” part of the 2017 CUNA Governmental Affairs Conference (GAC.)

They had a chance to speak with House and Senate members about issues related to credit unions.

Each year, the GAC Conference “calls upon thousands of credit unions to advocate for a stronger future for the credit union movement,” Seacomm said in a news release.

“The conference encourages credit union officials to ‘Hike the Hill,’ which is a grassroots program sponsored by the Credit Union National Association and the state leagues. This program allows credit union officials the opportunity to educate decision makers on credit union issues,” the release said.

"It is critical that we talk about issues which are vital to our industry,” SeaComm CEO Scott A. Wilson said in a prepared statement. “In particular parity for merchants to follow the same cybersecurity standards as required of financial institutions. Data breaches cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to credit unions like ours. There is nonexistent merchant data security standards which make merchants vulnerable to attacks, thereby exposing credit unions, like SeaComm, to significant monetary costs and reputational risk. SeaComm, like other financial institutions, is subject to strict data security standards under the Gramm Leach Bliley Act (GLBA). Retailers are not."

According to the Credit Union National Association, nearly 60 percent of consumers expect to be a victim of a data breach at some point. In 2016, 1,093 data breaches occurred in the U.S., a 40 percent increase from 2015.

As a best practice, SeaComm encourages its members to monitor their accounts regularly and to report any suspicious activity directly to them through one of its multiple communication channels.

"It is important for us to continue to work towards legislation that has parity for both financial institutions and merchants in order to mitigate these ongoing breaches which continue to expose millions of American consumers' personal financial information,” Wilson said in the release.