23andMe Hack Breaches 6.9 Million Users ’ Info, Including Some’s Health Data

Some 6.9 million 23andMe customers had their data compromised after an anonymous hacker accessed user profiles and posted them for sale on the internet earlier this year, the company said on Monday.  The compromised data included users’ ancestry information as well as, for some users, health-related information based on their genetic profiles, the company said in an email.  [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Privacy advocates have long warned that sharing DNA with testing companies like 23andMe and Ancestry makes consumers vulnerable to the exposure of sensitive genetic information that can reveal health risks of individuals and those who are related to them. Read More: DNA Testing Kits Are on Everyone’s Holiday List. 5 Things to Know If You Get One In the case of the 23andMe breach, the hacker only directly accessed about 14,000 of 23andMe’s 14 million customers, or 0.1%. But on 23andMe, many users choose to share information with people they’re genetically related to — which can include distant cousins they have never met, in addition to direct family members — in order to learn more about their own genetics and build out their family trees. So through those 14,000 accounts, the hacker was able to access information about millions more. A much smaller subset of customers had health data accessed. Users can choose whether to share different kinds of data, including name, location, an...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized News Desk wire Source Type: news