Half of American Adults Hacked This Year
Hackers have exposed the personal information of 110 million Americans -- roughly half of the nation's adults -- in the last 12 months alone.
That massive number, tallied for CNNMoney by Ponemon Institute researchers, is made even more mind-boggling by the amount of hacked accounts: up to 432 million.
The exact number of exposed accounts is hard to pin down, because some companies -- such as AOL (AOL) and eBay (EBAY) -- aren't fully transparent about the details of their cyber breaches. But that's the best estimate available with the data tracked by the Identity Theft Resource Center and CNNMoney's own review of corporate disclosures.
The damage is real. Each record typically includes personal information, such as your name, debit or credit card, email, phone number, birthday, password, security questions and physical address.
It's enough to get hunted down by an abusive ex-spouse. It makes you an easier target for scams. And even if only basic information about you is stolen, that can easily be paired with stolen credit card data, empowering impostors.
Cyberattacks are growing so numerous that we're becoming numb to them. Researchers at IT company Unisys (UIS) say we're now experiencing "data-breach fatigue."
Even the most recent numbers make for a dizzying list:
* 70 million Target customers' personal information, plus 40 million credit and debit cards.
* 33 million Adobe user credentials, plus 3.2 million stolen credit and debit cards.
* 4.6 million Snapchat users' account data.
* 3 million payment cards used at Michaels.
* 1.1 million cards from Neiman Marcus.
* "A significant number" of AOL's 120 million account holders.
* Potentially all of eBay's 148 million customers' credentials.
"It's becoming more acute," said Larry Ponemon, head of the Ponemon Institute. "If you're not a data breach victim, you're not paying attention."
So, get accustomed to the hack of the month. In April, that was AOL. In May, it was eBay. Who knows what June will bring?
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/half-of-american-adults-hacked-this-year-150729859.html