(ConservativeHub.com) – On Monday, December 4, it was revealed that around 6.9 million users who had used 23andMe, a genetic testing company, had their personal information stolen by a hacker. According to a spokesperson from the company, the hacker had managed to access the information of 5.5 million users that were available on the 23andMe DNA Relatives Feature. This feature is used to help connect people with their family relatives.
Hackers also managed to gain access to the family tree profiles of 1.4 million users, which includes a wide range of information about the people. The Hill reported that TechCrunch was the first outlet to estimate that 6.9 million people had been impacted back in October.
Federal law enforcement officials and third-party forensic experts have both assisted in the investigation. On December 1, the company said that the investigation had been completed and that all of the findings were filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company noted in its findings that the hackers initially managed to access around 0.1 percent of the overall user data that the company holds. A spokesperson said this was equal to around 14,000 users. The spokesperson also pointed out that all the information that was accessed was through the Family Tree profile information and DNA Relatives profile files. According to The New York Times, the initial breach gave the hackers the opening they needed to access the information of millions of others.
The company said this incident was not indicative of any data security incident or breach in their systems and that all of the account breaches were a result of the account credentials for the users not being secure.
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