U.S. Washington state reports more data breach cases in 2019

Source: Xinhua| 2019-11-30 18:22:35|Editor: Xiang Bo
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SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 29 (Xinhua) -- Attorney General Bob Ferguson of the U.S. state of Washington on Friday released an annual report that showed an increasing number of data breaches in 2019, the Attorney General's office said.

The 2019 Data Breach Report said that there was a nearly 20 percent growth of cases of data compromising in the state last year, although fewer Washingtonians were affected in those cases due to the relatively smaller size of the breaches.

About 390,000 Washington residents had their data compromised between July 2018 and 2019, representing a sharp fall from the figure of last year, when 3.4 million cases of data breaches were reported, said the report.

Among them, more than 3.2 million Washingtonian users of credit-reporting firm Equifax fell victim to a mega-breach incident in 2018.

There were no mega-breaches affecting Washington state's residents in fiscal year 2019, but the number of Washingtonians impacted by small to mid-size breaches more than doubled from 180,000 to 390,000 last year, according to the Attorney General's office.

The report of data breaches were based on statistics submitted by businesses or various government agencies of Washington state, it added.

"This report highlights that data breaches remain a serious threat to our privacy," Ferguson said.

A legislative bill initiated by Ferguson, which has been passed by the state's two houses unanimously, will take effect on March 1, 2020.

The new measure will better protect the privacy of Washingtonians after it goes into effect next year as it requires any data breaches to be informed of consumers and cuts the deadline of reporting data compromising from 45 days to 30 days, said the Attorney General's office.

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