This is stylistic. It's basically setting a scale factor for you, that this isn't a small breach, but a noticeable fraction of a billion. I could have written

This is stylistic. It's basically setting a scale factor for you, that this isn't a small breach, but a noticeable fraction of a billion. I could have written it as 1.34E+08 though fewer people would have understood this, though it would have been as correct. 134 Million is obviously "alot", though from a psychological perspective, the billion gets more attention than the million, even though the number isn't changing. Again, stylistic.