Nearly Half of Americans Notified of Data Breaches

NATIONAL REPORT — Nearly half of Americans have been told that they or a household member’s payment details were compromised, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

    This figure is so high that experts say consumers now have "breach fatigue," meaning they stop worrying about cyberattacks because they appear in the news so often.

There has been news of several large data breaches in recent months, including Home Depot Inc. and Target Corp. In the convenience store industry, MAPCO Express Inc. was the target of a data breach a couple of years ago.

Forty-five percent of Americans said they have received a breach notification letter from a retailer or credit card or debit card issuer that their payment data had been affected by a breach. The Journal doesn’t have comparable data from previous years.

However, the poll also found that more Americans than ever think they have been targeted in Internet crime. As of December, 15 percent said either they or a member of their household had been hit by online fraud or hacking.

This is in comparison to a Gallup poll four years ago. When asked the same question in 2010, 11 percent answered yes.

The Journal/NBC poll surveyed 1,000 adults and was conducted from Dec. 10-14. It has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.1 percentage points.