NEW YORK – CNNMoney reports that hackers have exposed the personal information of 110 million Americans — roughly half of the nation's adults — in the last 12 months alone, according to data provided to the news source by Ponemone Institute.

“That massive number … is made even more mind-boggling by the amount of hacked accounts: up to 432 million,” writes the news source.

CNNMoney continues that researchers at Unisys say we’re now going through “data-breach fatigue,” citing a “dizzying list” of recent cyber attacks:

• 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

Why this is happening is explained in two ways: an increasing move to living our lives online, where shopping, social media and banking are more common, which means stores are relying on the Internet to conduct and process transactions.

And second, hacking is becoming more sophisticated and profitable (read “Data Security: Enough is Enough” in NACS Daily). “Offensive hacking weapons are numerous and cheap. And hackers have learned to quietly roam inside corporate networks for years before setting off any alarms,” writes CNNMoney.

“Now attackers are very focused,” Brendan Hannigan of IBM’s security systems division told the news source, adding, “There are teams of them, and they create malware to attack specific organizations.”

CNNMoney warns consumers to “get accustomed to the hack of the month. In April, that was AOL. In May, it was eBay. Who knows what June will bring?”

Read more about data security in the May issue of NACS Magazine.