Have you been the victim of a data breach?

Data breaches have been in the news a lot recently, and the numbers are scary: Home Depot and Target were hit by hackers, and the JPMorgan Chase breach alone compromised the names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of 76 million households and 7 million small businesses. We reached out to our readers on Facebook to see whether they'd been a victim of one of these high-profile breaches, and if so, how they were affected.

Most who answered in the affirmative cited Home Depot as the breach that got to them. Tom Howe succinctly wrote, "As of last week, I'm officially a card-carrying member of Home Depot's data breach."

John Grieme told us, "The Home Depot breach caused Citibank to replace a credit card." He's still concerned, though: "I also think others have been hacked but haven't owned up to it. I get spam to e-mail [accounts that] I only use for incoming from one specific company. I never send outgoing [e-mail] from the accounts, have antivirus and am very careful."

Stephanie Larsen had a close call due to the Target breach. "I was on vacation in Mexico in January," she wrote, "when my credit card was unexpectedly declined. U.S. Bank decided to proactively issue me a new debit card and invalidate the old one. Luckily, my daughter's card was unaffected and I could transfer money online from my account to hers so we could get cash. If I'd been traveling alone, it would have gotten dicey pretty quick."

Bookmark our guide to Internet security for tips and advice on staying safe.

Many readers lamented the inconvenience they suffered after their data was compromised. "Home Depot and Target," wrote Charles Lux. "Two cards replaced. Updating all of the automatic payments tied to those cards has been painful."

But Charles, at least, sees some light at the end of the data-breach tunnel: "I just tried Apple Pay yesterday and was impressed. The security features should help alleviate the risk of future data compromises. As others have mentioned, the upcoming chip upgrade to debit/credit cards will also be a big win for consumer protection."

Beyond the pain of replacing cards, some consumers' trust in companies has eroded. Said William Giedraitis: "Any company that says they haven't been breached is lying. They have all been hacked. Some just choose to hide the fact and hope people will get hacked by another company they will blame."

Has any of your account information been compromised by a data breach? Tell us! Take our poll here or at the top of this page. And for plenty of tips on how to stay safe, visit our guide to Internet security.

—Carol Mangis