The number of Americans who say they've had important personal information stolen online is on the rise, according to a Pew Research Center report released Monday, according to CNET.com.
According to the survey conducted in January, 18 percent of online adults have had personal information stolen such as their social security number, credit card or bank account information, CNET.com reported. That's up from 11 percent in a July 2013 Pew survey.
The number of adults who had an online account compromised or taken over without their permission remained flat at 21 percent, according to CNET.com.
The survey was done after news broke of Target Corp.'s massive pre-Christmas data breach, but well before last week's discovery of the "Heartbleed" bug, which has caused widespread worry across the Internet, CNET.com reported.
The Target breach resulted in the theft of 40 million debit and credit card numbers, along with the personal information of up to 70 million people, according to CNET.com.
The cost of replacing potentially stolen debit and credit cards has already reached into the tens of millions of dollars, CNET.com reported.
Other companies including Neiman Marcus and Michael's subsequently reported their own smaller data breaches, according to CNET.com.
It remains unclear whether hackers have been able to exploit Heartbleed, which went undetected for more than two years, to steal personal information, CNET.com reported. The bug is caused by a flaw in OpenSSL software, which is used on the Internet to provide security for both websites and networking devices such as routers, switchers and firewalls.
The Pew survey, conducted between Jan. 23 and 26, polled 1,002 adults living in the continental U.S. and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, according to CNET.com.
