Poll: Nearly half affected by card hacks

Nearly half the nation has been touched by one of the recent data breaches roiling the country’s biggest banks and retail shops, according to a new poll.

The new NBC/Wall Street Journal survey found that 45 percent of the country’s households had been notified by their credit card company or a store that their data had been stolen in a breach.

{mosads}The finding comes amid the continued fallout of the massive hack at Sony Pictures and follows reports about incidents at Target, Home Depot, JPMorgan Chase and other companies.

Lawmakers in Congress passed some legislation targeting cyberattacks before leaving Washington for the holidays this year, though major bills directing companies how to respond after they have been hacked have stalled.

The new polling shows the wide impact of those incidents and could be used as ammunition for supporters of a new law. 

Additionally, 15 percent of the poll’s respondents said that they or a member of their household had been the target of online fraud or hacking. That’s a slight increase from previous polling, though still relatively low.

The survey polled 1,000 adults from Dec. 10-14.