23andMe Says Hackers Saw Data From Millions of Users

Personal genetics firm 23andMe on Tuesday confirmed that hackers using stolen passwords accessed the personal information about 6.9 million of its members.
While the hackers were only able to get into about 14,000 accounts, or 0.1 percent of its customers, they were able to see information shared by genetically linked relatives at 23andMe, a spokesperson said in reply to an AFP inquiry.
23andMe is in the process of notifying affected customers and has hardened account security by requiring users to reset passwords and set up a second authentication method such as sending a temporary code to a mobile phone, according to the spokesperson.
In early October, 23andMe detected that data thieves had gotten into accounts safeguarded by login details recycled from other websites that had been compromised, the company said.
Of the 6.9 million accounts hacked, 5.5 million contained information on genetic matches and may have also included birth dates and locations if provided by users, according to 23andMe.
23andMe was founded in 2006 and is based in Mountain View, California, where Google also has its headquarters.


This Cyber News was published on www.securityweek.com. Publication date: Tue, 05 Dec 2023 21:43:04 +0000


Cyber News related to 23andMe Says Hackers Saw Data From Millions of Users

Hacker leaks millions of new 23andMe genetic data profiles - A hacker has leaked an additional 4.1 million stolen 23andMe genetic data profiles for people in Great Britain and Germany on a hacking forum. Earlier this month, a threat actor leaked the stolen data of 1 million Ashkenazi Jews who used 23andMe ...
10 months ago Bleepingcomputer.com
DNA testing: What happens if your genetic data is hacked? - The personal information of millions of people who sent swabs of their DNA to consumer testing services have been leaked in high profile hacks in recent years, leading to questions about how secure that genetic data is. In autumn 2023, a hacker ...
8 months ago Packetstormsecurity.com
23andMe confirms nearly 7 million customers affected in data leak - Nearly 7 million 23andMe customers had their profile data leaked in a cybersecurity incident in October, a company spokesperson confirmed to SC Media on Monday. The vast majority of the leaked data was scraped from the site's DNA Relatives feature ...
10 months ago Packetstormsecurity.com
23andMe: It's YOUR Fault We Lost Your Data - DNA testing firm doubles down on blaming victims and sics lawyer on them. Millions of 23andMe users had their personal information stolen last year. Apparently, it's not the firm's responsibility-it's the users' own fault that a distant relative had ...
9 months ago Securityboulevard.com
23andMe Faces Legal Backlash Over Data Breach and Blames Victims - Facing a deluge of more than 30 lawsuits from individuals impacted by a substantial data breach, genomics company 23andMe has taken a defensive stance by placing responsibility on the victims themselves. The breach came to light in October when ...
9 months ago Cysecurity.news
23andMe failed to detect mega-breach attackers for 5 months The Register - Biotech and DNA-collection biz 23andMe, the one that blamed its own customers for the October mega-breach, just admitted it failed to detect any malicious activity for the entire five months attackers were breaking into user accounts. In a collection ...
8 months ago Go.theregister.com
How to perform a proof of concept for automated discovery using Amazon Macie | AWS Security Blog - After reviewing the managed data identifiers provided by Macie and creating the custom data identifiers needed for your POC, it’s time to stage data sets that will help demonstrate the capabilities of these identifiers and better understand how ...
1 week ago Aws.amazon.com
23andMe Says Hackers Saw Data From Millions of Users - Personal genetics firm 23andMe on Tuesday confirmed that hackers using stolen passwords accessed the personal information about 6.9 million of its members. While the hackers were only able to get into about 14,000 accounts, or 0.1 percent of its ...
10 months ago Securityweek.com
23andMe says, er, actually some genetic and health data might have been accessed in recent breach - In October we reported that the data of as many as seven million 23andMe customers were for sale on criminal forums following a password attack against the genomics company. Now, a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission has provided ...
10 months ago Malwarebytes.com
23andMe Blames User "Negligence" for Data Breach - DNA testing firm 23andMe has argued the victims are responsible for the breach of highly sensitive genomics data on its systems last year. The DNA testing firm argued this allowed the attackers to launch a credential stuffing campaign using usernames ...
9 months ago Infosecurity-magazine.com
23andMe told victims of data breach that suing is futile, letter shows - Last year, hackers accessed 14,000 accounts on 23andMe by using passwords that had been previously breached during security incidents on other websites. By using this tactic, known as credential stuffing, hackers could access the personal data of ...
9 months ago Packetstormsecurity.com
23andMe Is On The Ventilator. Its CEO Remains 'Hopeful' - The Silicon Valley and Wall Street golden kid 23andMe was the DNA testing firm just three years ago. The company is currently in risk of being delisted from the Nasdaq. CEO of 23andMe Anne Wojcicki tells CNN that Wall Street shouldn't write her off ...
7 months ago Cysecurity.news
Infosec experts divided over 23andMe's breach blame game The Register - 23andMe users' godawful password practices were supposedly to blame for the biotech company's October data disaster, according to its legal reps. Nope, the biotech firm's infrastructure management was certainly not at fault in any way when 6.9 ...
9 months ago Go.theregister.com
23andMe: Data Breach Was a Credential-Stuffing Attack - DNA testing company 23andMe has released further details surrounding an October data breach, where user profile information had been accessed and downloaded at the hands of a threat actor. On Oct. 1, a threat actor made a post on the Dark Web ...
10 months ago Darkreading.com
How Can DSPM Prevent High-Profile Breaches? - In early October 2023, a DNA testing company for ancestry discovery purposes, 23andMe, disclosed that it suffered a data breach. On the 5th of December 2023, the company shared that the data breach was more damaging than was initially reported. On ...
9 months ago Gbhackers.com
23andMe: "Negligent" Users at Fault for Breach of 6.9M Records - Up against an onslaught of lawsuits, 23andMe is denying liability for millions of users' genetic records leaked last fall. In a letter sent to a group of users suing the company obtained by TechCrunch, lawyers representing the biotech company laid ...
9 months ago Darkreading.com
23andMe updates user agreement to prevent data breach lawsuits - In October, a threat actor attempted to sell 23andMe customer data and, after failing to do so, leaked the data for 1 million Ashkenazi Jews and 4.1 million people living in the United Kingdom. 23andMe told BleepingComputer that the data was obtained ...
10 months ago Bleepingcomputer.com
23andMe - 23andMe is a revolutionary service that analyzes your DNA and provides insights into your health, ancestry, and traits. This saliva-based DNA service offers personalized reports on your ancestry, family history, traits, and more. With one of the ...
10 months ago
23andMe responds to breach with new suit-limiting user terms The Register - Security in brief The saga of 23andMe's mega data breach has reached something of a conclusion, with the company saying its probe has determined millions of leaked records originated from illicit break-ins into just 14,000 accounts. In an update on ...
10 months ago Go.theregister.com
Former Uber CISO Speaks Out, After 6 Years, on Data Breach, SolarWinds - Joe Sullivan arrived at his sentencing hearing on May 4 this year, prepared to go to jail had the judge not gone with a parole board's recommendation of probation. A federal jury convicted the former Uber CISO months earlier on two charges of fraud ...
10 months ago Darkreading.com
The 23andMe Data Breach Keeps Spiraling - More details are emerging about a data breach the genetic testing company 23andMe first reported in October. As the company shares more information, the situation is becoming even murkier and creating greater uncertainty for users attempting to ...
10 months ago Wired.com
TransForm says ransomware data breach affects 267,000 patients - Shared service provider TransForm has published an update on the cyberattack that recently impacted operations in multiple hospitals in Ontario, Canada, clarifying that it was a ransomware attack. TransForm is a not-for-profit, shared service ...
10 months ago Bleepingcomputer.com
Law Firms and Legal Departments Get Singled Out For Cyberattacks - Cyberattackers are doubling down on their attacks against law firms and corporate legal departments, moving beyond their historical activity of hacking and leaking secrets to targeting the sector with financial attacks, such as ransomware and ...
10 months ago Darkreading.com
DNA Security: Companies Must Meet Strict Penalties for Risking Users' Data - The pressing concern of companies ignoring DNA security DNA security is a concern that is often not talked about in the cybersecurity landscape. Personal information is what's buzzing these days. The latest 23andMe data breach serves as a sharp ...
10 months ago Cysecurity.news
Russian hackers use Ngrok feature and WinRAR exploit to attack embassies - After Sandworm and APT28, another state-sponsored Russian hacker group, APT29, is leveraging the CVE-2023-38831 vulnerability in WinRAR for cyberattacks. APT29 is tracked under different names and has been targeting embassy entities with a BMW car ...
10 months ago Bleepingcomputer.com

Latest Cyber News


Cyber Trends (last 7 days)


Trending Cyber News (last 7 days)