The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency says companies aren’t taking cybersecurity seriously enough at a time when the threat of electronic attacks is rising.

Hans-Georg Maassen says cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns cost German companies up to 50 billion euros ($55 billion) a year.

Maassen said Thursday at a business seminar in Berlin it would be good if authorities were given the power to stop such attacks, and that may mean acquiring the ability to strike back against computer networks used to launch them.

Volker Wagner, the head of German business lobby group ASW, says it is important for companies to remember that “anything that can be hacked will be hacked, sooner or later.”

Wagner says that while security measures are expensive, a successful attack can be far more costly.

(AP)