Important Takeaways:
- Genetic testing company 23andMe filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to help the $50 million company sell itself, the company announced Sunday.
- 23andMe’s saliva-based kits have been helping customers learn about their ancestry since 2006, and the company said it will continue operating while the bankruptcy court facilitates the sale process.
- News of the move raised concerns about how the personal data of millions of 23andMe customers will be handled.
- California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued a “consumer alert” regarding the “trove of sensitive consumer data 23andMe has amassed,” reminding Californians that they have the right to direct the company to delete their genetic data, destroy their test samples and revoke permission for genetic data to be used for research.
- “There are no changes to the way the Company stores, manages, or protects customer data,” 23andMe said in a media release.
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Important Takeaways:
- In some cases this included family trees, birth years and geographic locations, the company said.
- After weeks of speculation the firm has put a number on the breach, with more than half of its customers affected.
- The stolen data does not include DNA records.
- 23andMe is a giant of the growing ancestor-tracing industry. It offers genetic testing from DNA, with ancestry breakdown and personalized health insights.
- The biotechnology company, which is based in South San Francisco, was not hacked itself but cyber-criminals logged into about 14,000 individual accounts, or 0.1% of customers, by using email and password details previously exposed in other hacks.
- As was first reported by Tech Crunch, the company has acknowledged that by accessing those accounts, hackers were then able to find their way into “a significant number of files containing profile information about other users’ ancestry”.
- The criminals downloaded not just the data from those accounts but the private information of all other users they had links to across the sprawling family trees on the website.
- The stolen data includes information like names, how each person is linked and in some cases birth years, locations, pictures, addresses and the percentage of DNA shared with relatives
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