DNA Company 23andMe Reports Unauthorized Access to Numerous User Ancestry Files
The problem with centrally controlled personal data. Article by Ken Macon from Reclaim The Net cross-posted with permission.
(Reclaim The Net)—In recent years, a growing number of people have been handing their DNA over to tech companies for the apparent benefits of finding out information about their ancestry and more about their health. However, as with digital IDs, when such entities get access to your most intimate data, it becomes the target of hackers and cyberattacks.
A considerable number of user ancestry files were exposed during a recent cyberattack on genetic testing giant, 23andMe. As per an official filing released on Friday, cybercriminals infiltrated around 14,000 user accounts – a figure that equates to approximately 0.1% of the company’s global customer base of over 14 million.
The hackers leveraged a common cyberattack technique known as “credential stuffing.” This involved exploiting leaked account passwords to gain unauthorized access. However, the attack didn’t end with the initial victims. 23andMe incorporates a feature whereby users can opt to share selected information with other users. Consequently, the breach also extended to individuals linked through this feature.
What amplifies the gravity of the data breach is the nature of the exposed information — mainly personal user ancestry details, and in some cases, health-related genetic information. The exact number of affected ‘other users’ or the precise extent of accessed files remains unclear as the company has yet to release specific figures.
Tech news outlet TechCrunch undertook an analysis of the exposed datasets, comparing them against publicly accessible genealogy databases. The website found considerable overlap between the leaked datasets and established genealogy records.
In the aftermath of the initial breach disclosure in October, the hackers advertised the alleged data of one million users of Jewish Ashkenazi descent and 100,000 Chinese users on a prominent hacking forum. This preceded a subsequent advertisement of the supposed records of four million more users. Intriguingly, TechCrunch discovered a precursor to these developments where a hacker advertised a staggering 300 terabytes of stolen 23andMe user data and sought up to $50 million for its entirety.
Using dna data for individual identity or for targeted advertising, as denied by 23andme org, is not the concern. Chinese labs are buying all such data they can, and the concern is that they may learn how to create elements (like contagious viruses) that target certain groups. Such an effort would not care about individuals or about any commercial purpose, only care about groups like all of certain descent or of certain race or sex or age or intellect levels or other targeted groups. Those chemical elements could be introduced into food or water or air streams etc and only the targeted dna groups would be affected in whatever nefarious way lab developers worked out. That’s a MUCH bigger concern and is believed by some to be the intent. Btw... China will not share their own population’s dna data with others. It all seems like bloody unlikely fiction, just as much of today's other insanities did. Till recently.
Aren’t these fun times? Well, interesting times, anyway.
Who ever hacked 23&me are looking for Jews? Why? Are the Muslims looking? Look at Israel. Now every one blames the banking on the Jews. Khazarian of which the Rothschilds adapted are fake Jews controlling Israel? I have more
Since the late 19th century, the so-called “Khazarian theory” has promoted the idea that a bulk of Ashkenazic Jews living in Eastern Europe descended from medieval Khazars, a semi-nomadic Turkic people who founded a powerful polyethnic state in the Caucasus and north to the Caspian, Azov and Black seas. … [T]he theory is absolutely without evidence. As any historian will tell you, generations of Jews, like generations of any people, leave historical traces behind them. … Predictably, archaeologic evidence about the widespread existence of Jews in Khazaria is almost nonexistent. …