Customers Ticked Off Over Breach Notification

Consumers are mad as hell about corporate security breaches, and they aren't going to take it anymore. Well, about a third of them aren't, anyway.

Some 31 percent of customers who have been notified of the possible exposure of their personal information have terminated their relationship with the breached company, according to a study published earlier this week by the Ponemon Institute and security vendor ID Experts.

More than half of the respondents (55 percent) said they have been notified more than once over the last two years about a breach involving their personal data. Eight percent said they have received four notifications or more.

In the study, consumers also groused about the way they were notified of the breaches. More than 55 percent of respondents said they received their notifications more than one month after the incident, and more than 50 percent of respondents rated the timeliness, clarity, and quality of the notifications as either fair or poor.

Only 2 percent of respondents who had been notified of a data breach said they had definitely experienced identity theft as a result of the breach. Sixty-four percent said they weren't sure if they had fallen victim to identity theft.

Twenty-six percent of respondents took no action after being notified of a breach. Fifty-seven percent said they lost trust and confidence in the breached organization.

— Tim Wilson, Site Editor, Dark Reading