California has always been a king of innovation - from the earliest ventures in filmmaking to today’s Silicon Valley technologies. So it's not surprising that California has been at the vanguard of cybersecurity, being the first state to enact a breach data notification law in 2003. Laws don't stop cybercriminals, though - and California has seen a sharp rise in breaches the last 4 years, according to The California Data Breach Report. Consider these chilling realities: • There were 657 data breaches involving more than 500 records from 2012-2015 - impacting a total of more than 49 million records of Californians. • In 2012, 2.6 million records were impacted; by 2015, that number rose to 24 million. • Nearly 3 out of 5 California residents were victims of a data breach last year. According to the report, every industry is affected: schools, hospitals, restaurants, retailers, banks, hotels, government agencies and more. Any of them can suffer severe consequences, such as brand damage, class action lawsuits, lost business and regulatory fines. Their users and consumers see their social security numbers, payment card data, medical information, driver's license numbers and other personal data fall into criminal hands; according to Javelin Strategy & Research, 67 percent of 2014 breach victims in the U.S. were also victims of fraud.