Cyber Risks Top Agenda for Employee Benefits Advisory Panel

A federal employee benefits advisory panel will investigate issues employers face ensuring against cybersecurity risks and how health and retirement plans mitigate those risks differently.

The ERISA Advisory Council voted Monday to spend the next year researching cyber risks. Officials said cybersecurity remains a top priority for both regulators and plan sponsors as they navigate employee benefit structures in a digital economy.

“The people who are responsible for these things are often not themselves IT experts,” said Tim Hauser, deputy assistant secretary for employee benefits enforcement at the U.S. Labor Department. “There’s a little bit of a temptation when you’re ...