Few consumers paying the price in recent hacking epidemic

New York

AT DISCOUNT retailer Target, 40 million customers had their credit card information exposed to hackers. At JPMorgan Chase, personal details associated with 80 million accounts were leaked. Last month, a hacker gained access to 4.5 million records from the University of California, Los Angeles, health system.

Enormous numbers like these can make it feel as if we're living through an epidemic of data breaches in which no one's bank account or credit card is safe. But the actual effect on consumers is quite different from what the headlines suggest.