Montana Department of Justice statistics illustrate threat to Montanans and businesses

BOZEMAN, Mont. — Data analyzed by Pine Cove Consulting, a Bozeman-based IT consulting company, revealed 82,531 Montanans were affected by a cyber breach in 2020 that resulted in some aspect of data being lost or exposed to the public. These breaches were a result of a record 684 unique organizations being hacked with the average length of each cyber-attack lasting 77 days.

“Some Montana organizations assume that they aren’t as susceptible to cyber-attacks because Montana is rural. This is not true,” said Brandon Vancleeve, Pine Cove Consulting president. “In fact, according to 2018 U.S. Census data there are just over one million residents in the state of Montana. The data gathered from the MTDOJ show that, over the course of the last six years, 899,058 Montanans have been affected by a cyber-breach. Assuming each one of these individuals is unique, that would mean that 89.4% of all Montanans have fallen victim to a data breach in the last six years. We wanted to share our findings to raise awareness for both consumers and businesses to be aware of the cyber-risks and take the necessary precautions to protect yourself.”

The 684 organizations reported facing a data breach that affected an average of 121 Montanans per data breach. These organizations include international, national, and local companies. The data breaches can result in as little as passwords being shared, and as much as social security numbers being compromised. Two of the top six most damaging cyber-attacks to Montanans occurred to businesses headquartered in Ravalli and Missoula Counties.